
(jiass_ 
Book^ 






"LIBERT Y." 




Jio^ 



THE IMAGE JLND SUPERSCRIPTION ON EVERY COIN ISSUED BY THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA. 




PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO 
ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF. 



THE INSCRIPTION ON THE BELL IN THE OLD PHILADELPHIA STATEH0U3E, WHICH 

WAS RUNG JULY 4, 1776, AT THE SIGNING OF THE 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



1837. 



** 



*'L I B E R T Y." 



THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 
rights ; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their powers from the just consent of the governed, 
&c. [See the whole declaration, signed by the delegates of all the 
original states, and adopted as tlie basis of all the State Constitu- 
tions.] 

THE UNITED STATES' CONSTITUTION. 

We, the people of the United States, in order to ^orm a more per- 
fect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for 
the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the 
blessings of hberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and 
establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [In 
what possible manner does the most absolute slavery of, and the 
systematic and perpetuated traffic in, the blood, brains, and nerves 
of two and a quarter millions of human beings, assist ; and in what 
possible manner does it not destroy each and all of these great 
objects'? Among the following provisions of the Constitution, are all 
which the framers of it dared to insert for the security of slave pro- 
perty. If they had not felt guilty in holding such property, they would 
not have left so many hundreds of millions of it with no better secu- 
rity in the Constitution, and so perfectly exposed, as will appear from 
the instrum'nit itself, and from all the State Constitutions, to the tre- 
mendous energy of free speech and a FREE PRESS.] 

Art. I. Sec. 2. Third clause. Representatives and direct taxes 
shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included 
within this Union, accordii)g to their respective numbers, which shall 
be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, in- 
cluding those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding 
Indians not taxed, three.fifths of all other persons. 



4 CONSTITUTIONS 

Sec. 8. [Among the enumerated powers of Congress are the fol- 
lowing, which give it full authority to abolish the internal slave-trade 
and slavery in the District of Columbia, viz :] The Congress shall 
have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among 
the several States, &c. 

The Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation, 
in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles 
square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance 
of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United 
States. 

[A similar power, also, extenJs to the territories, as appears from] 
Art. IV. Sec. 3. The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and 
make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and 
other property belonging to the United States, &c. 

Sec. 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. 

No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or 
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall 
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor 
may be due. 

Sec. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state in the 
union, a republican form of government, and shall protect each of 
them against invasion ; and on application of the legislature, or of 
the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against 
domestic violence. 

Art. V. The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses 
shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitu- 
tion, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the 
several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, 
which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as 
part of this constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three- 
fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths 
thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed 
by Congress. 

Amendment 1. Congress shall make no law respecting an es- 
tablishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or 
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ; or the right of the 
people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a 
redress of grievances. 

Amendment VI. The right of the people to be secure in their 
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches 
and seizures, shall not be violated ; and no warrants shall issue but 
upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particu- 
larly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to 
be seized. 

Amendment VII. No person shall be held to answer for a capi- 
tal or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indict- 
ment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval 



OF THE STATES. 6 

forces, or m the militia when in actual service, in time of war or 
public danger ; nor shall any person be subject, for the same offence, 
to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be compelled in 
any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived 
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor shall 
private property be taken for public use without just compensation. 

Amendment IX. In suits' at common law, where the value in 
controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall 
be preserved ; and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re- 
examined in any court of the United States, than according to the 
rules of the common law. 

, CONSTITUTION OF MAINE. 

Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments 
on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of this hberty. No 
laws shall be passed regulating or restraining the freedom of the 
press. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

The liberty of the press is essential to security of freedom in a 
state ; it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth. 

NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in 
a state ; it ought, therefore, to be inviolably preserved. 

VERMONT. 

The people have a right to a freedom of speech, and of writing 
and publishing their sentiments concerning the transactions of gov- 
ernment, and, therefore, the freedom of the press ought not to be 
restrained. 

Motto. — " Freedom and Liberty." 

CONNECTICUT. 

Every citizen may freely speak, write, and pubhsh his sentiments 
on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty. 

No law shall ever be passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of 
speech or of the press. 

NEW YORK. 

Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments 
on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right ; and no 
law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech, or of 
the press. In all prosecutions or indictments for libels, the truth 
may be given in evidence to the j-jry ; and if it shall appear to the 
jury, that the matter charged as libellous is true, and was published 
with good motives, and for justifiable ends, the party shall be ac- 
quitted ; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and 
the fact. 

Arms — Rising Sun. Supporters — Liberty and Justice. 



CONSTITUTIONS 



PENNSYLVANIA. 

The priming presses shall be free to every person who undertakes 
to examine the proceedings of the legislature, or any branch of the 
government ; and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right 
thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one 
of the invaluable rights of man ; and every citizen may freely speak, 
write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of 
that liberty. 

Motto — Virtue, Liberty and Independence. 

DELAWARE. 
The press shall be free to every citizen who undertakes to examine 
the official conduct of men acting in a public capacity ; and any 
citizen may print on any such subject, being responsible for the abuse 
of that liberty. 

MARYLAND. 

The liberty of the press ought to be inviolably preserved. 
Arms — Figure of Justice. 

VIRGINIA. 
The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, 
and can never be restrained but by despotic governments. 




Motto 



So 



ALWAYS TO TYRANTS. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 

The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, 
and, therefore, ought never to be restrained. 
Arms — Liberty and Plenty. 

SOUTH CAROLINA. 
The trial by jury, as heretofore used in this state, and the liberty 
of the press, shall be for ever inviolably preserved. 

GEORGIA. 
Freedom of the press, and trial by jury, as heretofore used in this 
state, shall remain inviolate ; and no ex post facto law shall be passed. 
Arms — Temple of Liberty. 



OF THE STATES. 7 

KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE, INDIANA, LOUISIANA, AND ILLINOIS. 

The printing presses shall be free to every person who undertakes 
to examine the proceedings of the legislature, or any branch of gov- 
ernment ; and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. 
The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the in- 
valuable rights of man ; and every citizen may freely speak, write, 
and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that 
liberty. 

There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this 
state, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party 
shall have been duly convicted. Nor shall any indenture of any 
negro or mulatto, hereafter made and executed out of the bounds 
of this state, be of any validity within this state. — Constitution of 
Indiana. — [Those of Ohio and Illinois are similar.] 

OHIO. 
The printing presses shall be open and free to every citizen who 
wishes to examine the proceedings of any branch of government, or 
the conduct of any public officer ; and no law shall ever restrain the 
right thereof. Every citizen has an indisputable right to speak, write, 
or print upon any subject, as he thinks proper, being liable for the 
abuse of that liberty. 

MISSISSIPPI. 

Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments 
on all subjects, being responsible for the use of that liberty. 

No law shall ever be passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of 
speech or of the press. 

ALABAMA. 
Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments 
on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty. 

MISSOURI. 
The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the 
invaluable rights of man ; and every person may freely speak, write, 
and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that 
liberty. 



THE SLAVE-TRADE DECLARED TO BE PIRACY BY 
THE LAW OF THE UNITED STATES. 

If any citizen of the United States, being of the crew or ship's 
company of any foreign ship or vessel engaged in the slave-trade, 
or any person whatever, being of the crew or ship's company of any 
ship or vessel owned in the whole or part, or navigated for, or in 
behalf of, any citizen or citizens of the United States, shall land, 
from any such ship or vessel, and on any foreign shore seize any 
negro or mulatto, not held to service or labor by the laws of either 



8 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

of the states or territories of the United States, with intent to maKe 
such negro or mulatto a slave, or shall decoy, or forcibly bring or 
carry, or shall receive such negro or mulatto on board any such ship 
or vessel, with intent as aforesaid, such citizen or person shall be 
adjudged a PIRATE, and on conviction thereof, before the circuit 
court of the United States, for the district wherein he may be brought 
or found, shall suffer DEATH. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

I hope it will not be conceived from these observations, that it is 
my wish to hold the unhappy people who are the subject of this letter, 
in slavery. I can only say, that there is not a man living, who wishefs 
more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of 
it ; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can 
be accomplished, and that is, by the legislative authority ; and this, 
as far as my suffrage will go, shall not be wanting. — Letter to Robert 
Morris. 

The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so conspicu- 
ous on all occasions, that I never wonder at fresh proofs of it ; but 
your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a 
view of emancipating the slaves, is a generous and noble proof of 
your humanity. Would to God, a like spirit might diffuse itself 
generally into the minds of the people of this country ! But I despair 
of seeing it. Some petitions were presented to the Assembly at its 
last session, for the abolition of slavery ; but they could scarcely 
obtain a hearing. — Letter to Lafayette. 

I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel 
me to it, to possess another slave by purchase ; it being among my 
first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country 
may be abolished by law. — Letter to John F. Mercer. 

Because there are, in Pennsylvania, laws for the gradual abolition 
of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present ; 
but which nothing is more certain than that they must have, and at a 
period not remote. — [Reasons for depreciation of southern lands, in 
a letter to Sir John Sinclair.^ 

Cambridge, February 28, 1776. 

Miss Phillis, — Your favor of the 26th of October did not reach 
my hands till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, 
to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of im- 
portant occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and 
withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead 
my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect. I thank you most 
sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you en- 
closed ; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and 
panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 9 

poetical talents ; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to 
you, I would have published the poem, had I not been apprehensive, 
that, while I only meant to give the world this new instaucie of your 
genius, I might have incurred the in)putation ot" vanity. This, and 
nothmg else, determined me not to give it place in the public prints. 

If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near head-quarters, I 
shall be happy to see a person so favored by the Muses, and to whom 
nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I 
am, with great respect, your obedient humble servant. — Letter to 
PhilJis WJieatley [An African]. 

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations, cultivate peace 
and harmony with all ; religion and morality enjoin this conduct ; 
and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be 
worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, 
to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a 
people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who 
can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a 
plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be 
lost by a steady adherence to it '\ Can it be, that Providence has 
not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue 1 
The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which 
ennobles human nature. Alas ! is it rendered impossible by its 
vices 1 

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that 
permanent inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and pas- 
sionate attachments for others, should be excluded ; and that, in place 
of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. 
The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an 
habitual fondness, is, in some degree, a slave. It is a slave to its 
animosity, or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it 
astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against 
another, disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay 
hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, 
when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence fre- 
quent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. — Fare- 
well Address, 1796. 

Upon the decease of my wife, it is my will and desire that all my 
slaves, which I hold in my own rigM, shall receive their freedom. 
To emancipate them during her life, would, though earnestly wished, 
be attended with such insuperable difficulties, on account of their 
intermixture by marriages with the dower negroes, as to create the 
most fearful sensation, if not disagreeable consequences from the 
latter, while both descriptions are in the occupancy of the same pro- 
prietor ; it not being in my power, under the tenure by which the 
dower negroes are held, to manumit them. And, whereas, among 
those who will receive their freedom according to this clause, there 
may be some, who, from old age, or bodily infirmities, and others, 
who, on account of their infancy, will be unable to support themselves, 
it is ray will and desire that all who come under the first and second 

2 



10 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

descriptions, shall be comfortably clothed and fed by my heirs while 
they live ; and that such of the latter description as have no parents 
living, or if living, are unable or unwilling to provide for them, shall 
be bound by the Court until they shall arrive at the age of twenty-five 
years : and in case where no record can be produced whereby their 
ages can be ascertained, the judgment of the Court upon its own 
view of the subject, shall be adequate and final. The negroes thus 
bound, are by their masters and mistresses to be taught to read and 
write, and to be brought up to some useful occupation, agreeably to 
the laws of the commonwealth of Virginia, providing for the support 
of orphans and other poor children. And I do hereby expressly for- 
bid the sale or transportation out of the said commonwealth, of any 
slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatever. And I 
do, moreover, most pointedly and most solemnly enjoin it upon my 
executors, hereafter named, or the survivor of them, to see that this 
clause respecting slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled, 
at the epoch at which it is directed to take place, without evasion, 
neglect, or delay, after the crops which may then be on the ground 
are harvested. Particularly as it respects the aged and infirm, see- 
ing that a regular and permanent fund be established for their support, 
as long as there are subjects requiring it, not trusting to the uncertain 
provisions to be made by individuals. And to my mulatto man, 
William, (calhng himself William Lee,) I give immediate freedom, or 
if he should prefer it on account of the accidents which have befallen 
him, and which have rendered him incapable of walking, or of any 
active employment, to remain in the situation he now is, it shall be 
optional in him to do so — in either case, however, I allow him an 
annuity of thirty dollars during his natural life, which shall be inde- 
pendent of the victuals and clothes he has been accustomed to 
receive if he chooses the last alternative, but in full Avith his freedom 
if he prefers the first. And this I give him as a testimony of my 
sense of his attachment to me, and for his faithful services during the 
revolutionary war. 

[By another item of Washington's will, the negroes, (then thirty- 
three in number) belonging to the estate of 5. Dandridge, (his wife's 
brother,) and taken in execution, sold, and purchased in on Wash- 
ington's account, he left, with their increase, to the widow of B. 
Dandridge during her life ;] " at the expiration of which, I direct that 
all of them, who are forty years of age and upwards, shall receive 
their freedom ; all under forty and over sixteen, shall serve seven 
years and no longer ; and all under sixteen years, shall serve until 
they are twenty-five years old, and then be free." — George Washing- 
ton's Will, July 9, 1790[9]. 



JOHN ADAMS. LAFATETTE. 11 



JOHN ADAMS. 



You and I may not live to the time when this declaration shall be 
made good ; we may die ; die colonists — die slaves ; die, it may be, 
ignominiously, and on the scaffold ; be it so — be it so ; if it be the 
pleasure of heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of 
my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacriffce, 
come when that hour may ; but while I do live, let me have a country, 
or at least the hope of a country, imd that a. free country. But whatever 
may be our fate, be assured that this declaration will stand. — Speech 
at the passage of the Declaration of Independence. 

Great is Truth — great is Liberty — great is Humanity ; and they 
must and will prevail. — Letter to a friend. 



LAFAYETTE. 

While I am indulging in my views of American prospects, and 
American liberty, it is mortifying to be told that in that very country, 
a large portion of the people are slaves ! It is a dark spot on the face 
of the nation. Such a state of things cannot always exist. 

I see in the papers, that there is a plan of gradual abolition of sla- 
very in the district of Columbia. I would be doubly happy of it, for 
the measure in itself, and because a sense of American pride makes 
me recoil at the observations of the diplomatists, and other foreigners, 
who gladly improve the unfortunate existing circumstances into a 
general objection to our republican, and (saving that deplorable evil) 
our matchless system.* 

* Lafayette was consistent. Having bravely and disinterestedly aided in vindi- 
cating our rights, he did not incur the reproach of hypocrisy, by turning and ♦'■amp- 
ling on the rights of others. 

For the purpose of applying his principles to men of color, he purchased a plan- 
tation in French Guiana. His first step was to collect all the whips and other 
instruments of torture and punishment, and make a bonfire with them, in presence 
of the assembled slaves. He then instituted a plan of giving a portion of his time 
to each slave every week, with a promise that as soon as any one had earned money 
enough to purchase an additional day of the week, he should be entitled to it; and 
when with this increased time to work for himselt', he could purchase another day, 
he should have that, and so on, until he was master of his whole time. In the 
then state of Anti-Slavery science, this gradual and sifting process was deemed 
necessary to form the character of slaves, and to secure the safety of the masters. 
Abolitionists would not elect this mode now. They would turn slaves at once into 
free laborers or leaseholders, on the same estate, if possible, where they have been 
as slaves. Still there is not an American abolitionist who would not rejoice to see 
a single southern planter copy the plan of Lafayette, or take any other step tending 
to emancipation, however remote. Before Lafayette's views were fully executed, 
the French revolution occurred, which interrupted his operations, and made the 
slaves free at once. But mark the conduct of the ungrateful and blood-thirsty 
blacks. While other slaves in the colony availed themselves of the first moment 
of freedom to quit the plantations of their masters, Lafa3'ette's remained, desiring to 
work for their humane and generous friend. — D. L. Child's Oration. 



12 LAFAYETtB. 



Consistency of Lafayette. 



♦'After the decisive campaign against Lord Comwallis, in lYSl, 
Lafayette, on receiving the thanks of the State of Virginia, which 
had particularly profited by his successes, replied, by the expression 
of a wish, that liberty might be speedily extended to all men, without 
distinction. But, he was not contented with sterile wishes, and on 
his return to France, flattering himself, Hke Turgot and Poivre, that 
the gradual emancipation of the negroes, might be conciliated with the 
personal interests of the colonists ; he was desirous of establishing 
the fact by experience, and for that purpose, he tried a special experi- 
ment, on a scale sufficiently large to put the question to the test. At 
that period, the Intendant of Cayenne was a man of skill, probity, and 
experience, named Lescalier, whose opinions on the subject coincided 
with those of Lafayette. Marshal de Castries, the minister of the 
Marine, not only consented to the experiment, but determined to aid 
it, by permitting Lescalier to try upon the king's negroes the new 
regime projected. Lafayette had at first devoted one hundred thou- 
sand francs to this object. He confided the management of the re- 
.sidence which he had purchased at Cayenne, to a man distinguished 
for philosophy and talent, named Richeprey, who generously devoted 
himself to the direction of the experiment. The Seminarists esta- 
blished a colony, and above all, the Abbe Farjon, the curate of it, 
applauded and encouraged the measure. It is but justice to the 
colonists of Cayenne, to say, that the negroes had been treated with 
more humanity there than elsewhere. Richeprey's six months' stay 
there, and the example set by him, before he fell a victim to the 
climate, contributed still further to improve their condition. La 
Rochefoucault was to purchase another plantation as soon as Riche- 
prey's establishment had met with some success, and a third would 
afterward have been bought by Malesherbes, who took a cordial 
interest in the plan. The untimely death of Richeprey, the difficulty 
of replacing such a man, the departure of the Intendant, and a change 
in the ministry, threw obstacles in the way of this noble undertaking. 
When Lafayette had been proscribed in 1792, the National Con- 
vention confiscated all his property, and ordered his negroes to be 
sold at Cayenne, in spite of the remonstrances of Madame Lafayette, 
who protested against the sale, observing, that the negroes had been 
purchased only to be restored to liberty after their instruction, and 
not to be again sold as objects of trade and speculation. At a later 
period all the negroes of the French colonies were declared free, by 
a decree of the National Convention. It is nevertheless remarkable, 
that some of Lafayette's plans, with regard to the slave emancipation, 
were realized. Cayenne, the only one of our colonies in which the 
example set by him of instructing the negroes, had been followed, was 
also tlie only colony in which no disorders took place. Urged by gra- 
titude, the negroes of his plantation declared to Richeprey's successor, 
that if Lafayette's property was confiscated, they would avail them- 



TH6MAS JEFFERSON. ISl 

selves of their liberty ; but that in the opposite case they would remain 
and continue to cultivate his estates.^* — Private Life of Gen. Lafayette. 
Vol. I. page 149. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners 
of a nation may be tried, whether catholic or particular. It is more 
difficult for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own 
nation, familiarized to him by habit. There must doubtless be an 
unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the 
existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between 
master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pas- 
sions ; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading 
submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate 
it ; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all 
education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do 
what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in 
his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of 
passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that 
his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent 
storms, the child looks on, catches the hneaments of wrath, puts on 
the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst 
passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, 
cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man 
must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals unde- 
praved by such circumstances. And with what execration should 
the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to 
trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and 
these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor 
patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, 
it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live 
and labor for another : in which he must lock up the taculties of his 
nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to 
the evanishrnent of the human race, or entail his own miserable con- 
dition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the 
morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a 
warm climate no man will labor lor himself who can make another 
labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves, a very 
small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties 
of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm 
basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are 
of the gift of God 1 That they are not to be violated but with his 
wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is 
just ; that his justice cannot sleep for ever ; that considering num- 
bers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of 
fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events : that it 



14 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

may become probable by supernatural interference ! The Almighty 
has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. But 
it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through 
the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history, natural and 
civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into 
every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the 
origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, 
that of the slave is rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the 
way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total eman- 
cipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with 
the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation. — Notes 
on Virginia. 

What an incomprehensible machine is man ! Who can endure toil, 
famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his 
own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose 
power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a 
bondage, one hour of which is fraught vnth more misery than ages of 
that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must wait with 
patience the workings of an overruling Providence, and hope that that 
is preparing the deliverance of these our suffering brethren. When 
the measure of their tears shall be full — when their tears shall have 
involved heaven itself in darkness — doubtless a God of justice will 
awaken to their distress, and by diffusing a light and liberality among 
their oppressors, or, at length by his exterminating thunder manifest 
his attention to things of this world, and that they are not left to the 
guidance of blind fatality. — Ibid. 

Letter to Dr. Price of London. 

Paris, August 7, 1785. 

Sir, — Your favor of July 2d came duly to hand. The concern 
you therein express as to the effect of your pamphlet in America, 
induces me to trouble you with some observations on that subject. 
From my acquaintance with that country, I think I am able to judge 
with some degree of certainty of the manner in which it will have 
been received. Southward of the Chesapeake, it will find but few 
readers concurring with :t in sentiment on the subject of slavery. 
From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the peo- 
ple will approve it in theory, and it will find a respectable minority 
ready to adopt it in practice. A minority, which for weight and worth 
of character, preponderates against the greater number who have not 
• the courage to divest their families of a property, which, however, keeps 
their consciences uneasy. Northward of the Chesapeake, you may 
find here and there an opponent to your doctrine, as you may find 
here and there a robber and a murderer; but in no greater number. 
In that part of America there being but few slaves, they can easily 
disencumber themselves of them; and emancipation is put into such a 
train that, in a few years, there will be no slaves northward of Mary- 



y THOMAS JEFFERSON. 15 

land. In Maryland, I do not find such a disposition to begin the 
redress of this enormity as in Virginia. This is the* next state to 
which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle of justice in 
conflict with avarice and oppression ; a conflict wherein the sacred 
side is gaining daily recruits from the influx into office of young men 
grown and growing up : these have sucked in the principles of liberty, 
as it were with their mother's milk, and it is to them I look with anx- 
iety to turn the fate of this question. Be not, therefore, discouraged — 
what you have written will do a great deal of good ; and could you 
still trouble yourself with our welfare, no man is more able to give aid 
to the laboring side. — The College of William and Mary, in Williams- 
burgh, since the remodelling of its plan, is the place where are collected 
together all the young men of Virginia, under preparation for public 
life. They are there under the direction (most of them) of a Mr 
Wythe, one of the most virtuous of characters, and whose sentiments 
on the subject of slavery are unequivocal. I am satisfied, if you 
could resolve to address an exhortation. to those young men, with all 
that eloquence of which you are master, that its influence on the 
future decision of this important question would be great, perhaps 
decisive. Thus, you see, that so far from thinking you have cause to 
repent of what you have done, 1 wish you to do more, and wish it on 
an assurance of its cftect. The information I have received from 
America of the reception of your pamphlet in the different states, 
agrees with the expectation I had formed. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Letter to Gov. Cole of Illinois. 

MoNTicELLO, August 25, 1814. 

Dear Sir, — Your favor of July 31st was duly received, and was 
read with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the 
whole, do honor to both the head and heart of the writer. Mine, on 
the subject of the slavery of negroes, have long since been in posses- 
sion of tb.e public, and time has only served to give them stronger 
root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the 
cause of these people; and it is a moral reproach to us that they should 
have pleaded it so long in vain, and should have produced not a single 
effort, — nay, I fear, not much serious willingness to relieve them and 
ourselves from our present condition of moral and political reproba- 
tion. From those of the former generation, who were in the fulness 
of age when I came into public life, which was while our controversy 
with England was on paper only, I soon saw that nothing was to be 
hoped. Nursed and educated in the daily habit of seeing the de- 
graded condition, both bodily and mental, of those unfortunate beings, 
but not reflecting that that degradation was very much the work of 
themselves and their fathers, few minds have yet doubted but that 
they were as legitimate subjects of property as their horses or cattle. 

-. The quiet and monotonousi course oi»colonial life had been disturbed 

>9i 



n THOMAS JEFFKRSON. 

by no alarm, and little reflection on the value of Hberty. And when 
an alr./m waa taken at an enterprise of their own, it was not easy to 
carry them to the whole length of the principles which they invoked 
for themselves. In the first or second session of the legislature, after 
I became a tiienibor, I drew to this subject the attention of Colonel 
Bland, one of the oldest, ablest, and most respected members, and he 
undertook to move for certain moderate extensions of the protection 
of the laws to these people. I seconded his motion, and as a 
younger member, was more spared in the debate ; but he was de- 
nounced as an enemy to his country, and was treated with the greatest 
indecorum. From an early st^ge of our Revolution, other and more 
distant duties were assigned to me ; so that from that time till my 
return from Europe in 1789, and, I may say, till I returned to reside 
at home in 1SI!9, I had little opportunity of knowing the progress of 
public sentiment here on this subject, i had always hoped that the 
younger generation, receiving their early impressions after the flame 
of liberty had been kindled in every breast, and had become as it 
were the vital spirit of every American, in the generous tempera- 
ment of youth, analogous to the motion of their blood, and above the 
suggestions of avarice, would have sympathized with oppression 
wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own 
share of it. But my intercourse with them, since my return, has not 
been sufllicient to ascertain that they have made towards this point the 
progress I had hoped. — Your solitary, but welcome voice, is the first 
which has brought this sound to my ear ; and I have considered the 
genera] silence which prevails on this subject as indicating an apathy 
unfavorable to every hope. Yet the hour of emancipation is advancing 
in the march of time. 

I am sensible of the partiality with which you have looked towards 
me as the person who should undertake this salutary but arduous 
work. But this, my dear sir, is like bidding old Priam to buckle the 
armor of Hector, " trementibus aevo humeris, et inutile ferrum cingi." 
No : I have overlived the generation with which mutual labors and 
perils begat mutual confidence and influence. This enterprise is for 
the young ; for those who can follow it up, and bear it through to its 
consummation. It shall have all my prayers ; and these are the only 
weapons of an old man. 

It is an encouraging observation, that no good measure was ever 
proposed which, if duly pursued, failed to prevail in the end. We 
have proof of this in the history of the endeavors in the British Par- 
liament to suppress that very trade which brought this evil on us. 
And you will be supported by the religious precept, " be not weary 
in well doing." That your success may be as speedy and complete, 
as it will be honorable and immortal consolation to yourself, I shall 
as fervently and sincerely pray as I assure you of my great friendship 
and respect. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

Edward Cole, Esq,. 



9 

THOMAS JEFFERSON. 17 



PREAMBLE TO THE PENNSYLVANIA ACT, 1780. 

When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition to which 
the arms and tyranny of Great Britain Avere exerted to reduce us; 
when we look back on the variety of dangers to which we have been 
exposed, and how miraculously, in many instances, our wants have 
been supplied, and our deliverances wrought, when even hope and 
human fortitude have become unequal to the conflict: we are unavoid- 
ably led to a serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings 
which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being, 
from whom every good and perfect gift cometh. Impressed with 
these ideas, we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is 
in our power, to extend a portion of that freedom to others which has 
been extended to us, and relieve from that state of thraldom, to w hich 
we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have 
now every prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to inquire 
why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the different parts 
of the earth were distinguished by a difference of features and com- 
plexion. It is sufficient to know, that all are the work of an Almighty 
hand. We find in the distribution of the human species, that the 
most fertile, as well as the most barren parts of the earth, are inha- 
bited by men of different complexions from ours, and from each 
other ; from whence, we may reasonably, as well as religiously infer, 
that He, who placed them in their various situations, hath extended 
equally his care and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to 
counteract his mercies. We esteem it a peculiar blessing, granted to 
us, that we are this day enabled to add one more step to universal civil- 
ization, by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who 
have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed 
authority of the kings of Great Britain, no effectual legal relief could 
be obtained. Weaned by a long course of experience from those nar- 
row prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts 
enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all condi- 
tions and nations ; and we conceive ourselves, at this particular 
period, extraordinarily called upon by the blessing which we have 
received, to manifest the sincerity of our professions, and to give a 
substantial proof of our gratitude. 

And whereas, the condition of those persons who have heretofore 
been denominated negro and mulatto slaves, has been attended with 
circumstances which not only deprived them of the common blessing 
they were by nature entitled to, but has cast them into the deepest 
afflictions, by an unnatural separation and sale of husband and wife 
from each other, and from their children ; an injury, the greatness of 
which, can only be conceived by supposing that we were in the same 
unhappy case. In justice, therefore, to persons so unhappily circum- 
stanced, and who, having no prospect before them, wherein they may 
rest their sorrows and their hopes, have no reasonable inducement to 
render the service to society which they otherwise might, and also, in 

3 



18 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

grateful commemoration of our own happy deliverance from that state 
of unconditional submission, to which we were doomed by the tyranny 
of Britain. Be it enacted, That no child hereafter born, shall be a 
slave, &c. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

Ubi LiBERTAS, IB! Patria. 

Where Liberty dioells, there is my country. 

Two Other societies were also established in Philadelphia about 
this period, founded on the principles of the most refined humanity : 
one ^'for alleviating the miseries of public prisons " and the other, 
"for promoting the abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes 
unlawfully held in bondage, and the improvement of the condition of 
the African race.''- — Of each of these. Dr. Franklin was president. 
He had as early as the year 1772, strongly expressed his abhorrence 
of the traffic in .slaves, as appears by his letter of the 22d August, in 
that year, to Mr. Anthony Benezet, inserted in the first part of his 
Private Correspondence. 

The following Address, with a Plan of the latter society, are 
supposed to have been drawn up by Dr. Franklin. 

An Address to the public, from the Pennsylvania Society for promot- 
ing the Abolition of Slavery, and the relief of free negroes unlaw- 
fully held in bondage. 

It is with peculiar satisfaction, we assure the friends of humanity, 
that, in prosecuting the design of our association, our endeavors have 
proved successful, far beyond our most sanguine expectations. 

Encouraged by this success, and by the daily progress of that 
luminous and benign spirit of liberty, which is diffusing itself through- 
out the world, and humbly hoping for the continuance of the divine 
blessing on our labors, we have ventured to make an important addi- 
tion to our original plan, and do, therefore, earnestly solicit the 
support and assistance of all, who can feel the tender emotions of 
sympathy and compassion, or relish the exalted pleasure of benefi- 
cence. 

Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its 
very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may some- 
times open a source of serious evils. 

The unhappy man, who has long been treated as a brute animal, 
too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human 
species. The gaUing chains that bind his body, do also fetter his 
intellectual faculties, and impair the social afiections of his heart. 
Accustomed to move like a mere machine, by the will of a master, 
reflection is suspended ; he has not the power of choice ; and reason 
and conscience have but Httle influence over his conduct, because he 



i 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 19 

is chiefly governed by the passion of fear. He is poor and friend- 
less — perhaps worn out by extreme labor, age, and disease. 

Under such circumstances, freedom may often prove a misfortune 
to himself, and prejudicial to society. 

Attention to emancipated black people, it is, therefore, to be hoped, 
will become a branch of our national police ; but as far as we con- 
tribute to promote this emancipation, so far that attention is evidently 
a serious duty incumbent on us, and which we mean to discharge to 
the best of our judgment and abilities. 

To instruct, to advise,, to qualify those who have been restored to 
freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty ; to promote 
in them habits of industry; to furnish them with employments suited 
to their age, sex, talents, and other circumstances ; and to procure 
their children an education calculated for their future situation in life ; 
these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have 
adopted, and which we conceive will essentially promote the public 
good, and the happiness of these our hitherto too much neglected 
fellow creatures. 

A plan so extensive cannot be carried into execution without con- 
siderable pecuniary resources, beyond the present ordinary funds of 
the society. We hope much from the generosity of enlightened and 
benevolent freemen, and will gratefully receive any donations or sub- 
scriptions for this purpose, which may be made to our treasurer, 
James Starr, or to James Pemberton, chairman of our committee of 
correspondence. 

Signed by order of the Society, 

B. FRA^Khl^, President. 

Philadelphia, November 9, 1789. 

According to Sluher's account, Dr. Franklin's name, as president 
of the Abolition Society, was signed to the memorial presented to 
the House of Representatives of the United States, on the 12th of 
February, 1789, praying them to exert the full extent of power vested 
in them by the Constitution, in discouraging the traffic of the human 
species. This was his last public act. In the debates to which this 
memorial gave rise, several attempts were made to justify the trade. 
In the Federal Gazette, of March 25th, 1790, there appeared an 
essay, signed Historicus, written by Dr. Franklin, in which he 
communicated a speech, said to have been delivered in the Divan of 
Algiers, in 1G87, in opposition to the prayer of the petition of a sect 
called Erika, or Purists, for the abolition of piracy and slavery. 
This pretended African speech was an excellent parody of one de- 
livered by Mr. Jackson of Georgia. All the arguments urged in 
favor of negro slavery, are applied with equal force to justify the 
plundering and enslaving of Europeans. It affords, at the same 
time, a demonstration of the futility of the arguments in defence of 
the slave-trade, and of the strength of mind and ingenuity of the 
author, at his advanced period of life. — Memoirs by Wm. Temple 
Franklin. 



20 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States : 

The Memorial of the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the 
abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes unlawfully held in 
bondage, and the improvement of the condition of the African race — 
Respectfully sheweth, 

That from a regard for the happiness of mankind, an association 
was formed several years ago in this State, by a number of her citi- 
zens of various religious denominations, for promoting the abolition 
of slavery, and for the relief of those unlawfully held in bondage. A 
just and accurate conception of the true principles of liberty, as it 
spread through the land, produced accessions to their numbers, niany 
friends to their cause, and a legislative co-operation with their views, 
which, by the blessing of Divine Providence, have been successfully 
directed to the relieving from bondage a large number of their fellow 
creatures of the African race. They have, also, the satisfaction to 
observe, that in consequence of that spirit of philanthropy and gen- 
uine liberty which is generally ditfusing its beneficial influence, similar 
institutions are forming at home and abroad. 

That mankind are all tbrmed by the same Almighty Being, alike 
objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of hap- 
piness, the Christian religion teaches us- to believe, and the political 
creed of America fully coincides with the position. Your memorial- 
ists particularly engaged in attending to the distresses arising from 
slavery, believe it their indispensable duty to present this subject to 
your notice. They have observed with real satisfaction, that many 
important and salutary powers are vested in you for " promoting the 
welfare and securing the blessings of liberty to the people of the 
United States ;" and as they conceive that these blessings ought 
rightfully to be administered, without distinction of color, to all de- 
scriptions of people, so they indulge themselves in the pleasing 
expectation, that nothing which can be done for the relief of the 
unhappy objects of their care, will be either omitted or delayed. 

From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, 
and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties 
of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists 
conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen 
the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings 
of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your 
serious attention to the subject of slavery ; that you will be pleased 
to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who 
alone in this land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, 
and who amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning 
in servile subjection — that you will devise means for removing this 
inconsistency from the character of the American people — that you 
wdl promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race — and 
that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for 
discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men. 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PreMrfew/. 

PhUadelphla, Feb. 3, 1790. [Federal Gazette, 1790. j 



BENJAMIN RUSH. 21 



BENJAMIN RUSH. 



The [cruel] master's wealth cannot make him happy. — The suf- 
ferings of a single hour in the world of misery, for which he is pre- 
paring himself will overbalance all the pleasures he ever enjoyed in 
this life — and for every act of unnecessary severity he inflicts on his 
slaves, he shall suffer tenfold in the world to come. 

His unkind behaviour is upon record against him. The gentle 
spirits in heaven, whose happiness consists in expressions of gratitude 
and love, will have no fellowship with him. His soul must be 
melted with pity, or he can never escape the punishment which 
awaits the hard-hearted, equally with the impenitent, in the regions 
of misery. — Paradise of Negro Slaves. 

About the year 1775, I read a short essay with which I vv'as much 
pleased, in one of Bradford's papers, against the slavery of the 
Africans in our country, and which, I was informed, was written by 
Thomas Paine. This excited my curiosity to be better acquainted 
with him. We met soon afterwards at Mr. Aitkins' bookstore, where 
I did homage to his principles and his pen on the subject of the 
enslaved Africans. He told me that it was the first piece he had 
ever published here. 

When the subject of American Independence began to be agitated 
in this country, the public mind was loaded with an immense mass 
of prejudice and error relative to it. I called upon Mr. Paine, and 
suggested to him the propriety of preparing our citizens for a per- 
petual separation from Great Britain. He seized the idea with 
avidity, and immediately began his famous pamphlet in favor of that 
measure. When the sheets were finished, they were put into the 
hands of Samuel Adams, Judge Wilson, and Dr. Franklin, who held 
the same opinions, but by whom, no additions were made. At that 
time, there was in Philadelphia, a certain Robert Bell, an intelligent 
and independent Scotch printer. He at once consented to run the 
risk of publishing the pamphlet. The author and printer were im- 
mediately brought together, and in a few days " Common Sense" 
burst from the press, with an effect that has rarely been produced by 
types and paper in any age or country. — Letter to Cheetham, July 
17, 1809. 

The State of Pennsylvania still deplores the loss of a man in whom 
season, revelation, and many physical causes concurred to produce 
such attainments in moral excellency, as have seldom appeared in a 
human being. This amiable citizen considered his fellow-creature, 
man, as God's extract from his own works; and whether this image 
of Himself was cut out from ebony or copper ; whether he spoke 
his own or a foreign language ; or whether he worshipped with cere- 
monies or Vvithout them ; he siill considered him as a brother, and 
equally the object of his benevolence. Poets and historians who are 
to live hereafter, to you I commit his panegyric ; and when you hear 
of a law for abolishing slavery in each of the American States, such 



22 ANTHONY BENEZET PATRICK HENRT. 

as was passed in Pennsylvania in 1780 ; when you hear of the Kings 
and Queens of Europe pubUshing edicts for abolishing the trade in 
human souls ; and lastly, when you hear of schools and churches, 
with all the arts of civihzed life, being established among the nations 
of Africa ; then remember and record, that this revolution in favor of 
human happiness was the effect of the labors, the publications, the 
private letters, and the prayers of Anthony Benezet. — Rushes Inquiry. 



ANTHONY BENEZET. 

I can with truth and sincerity declare, that I have found amongst 
the negroes as great variety of talents, as among a like number of 
whites ; and I am bold to assert, that the notion entertained by some 
that the blacks are inferior in their capacities, is a vulgar prejudice 
founded on the pride or ignorance of their lordly masters, who have 
kept their slaves at such a distance as to be unable to form a right 
judgment of them. 



PATRICK HENRY. 

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price 
of chains and slavery 1 Forbid it, Almighty God ! — I know not what 
course others may take ; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me 
death ! 

Hanover, January 18, 1773. 

Dear Sir, — I take this opportunity to acknowledge tne receipt of 
Anthony Benezet's book against the slave-trade : I thank you for it. 
It is not a little surprising, that the pi-ofessors of Christianity, whose 
chief excellence consists in softening the human heart ; in cherishing 
and improving its finer feelings, should encourage a practice so totally 
repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong. What adds to 
the wonder is, that this abominable practice has been introduced in 
the most enlightened ages. Times, that seem to have pretensions to 
boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined 
morality, have brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, 
a species of violence and tyranny, which our more rude and barbar- 
ous, but more honest ancestors, detested. Is it not amazing, that at 
a time, when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with 
precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty, that in such 
an age, and in such a country, we find men professing a religion the 
most humane, mild, gentle and generous, adopting a principle as re- 
pugnant to humanity, as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destruc 
tive to liberty 1 Every thinking, honest man rejects it in speculation, 
How few in practice, from conscientious motives ! 



JAMES MONROE JOHN JAY. 23 

Would any one believe that I am master of slaves, of my own pur- 
chase ! I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living here 
without them. I will not, I cannot justify it. However culpable my 
conduct, I will so far pay my devoir to virtue, as to own the excel- 
lence and rectitude of her precepts, and lament my want of conform- 
ity to them. 

/ believe a time will come, when an opportunity will be offered to 
abolish this lamentable evil. Every thing we can do, is to improve 
it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, 
together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and our abhor- 
rence for slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished for reformation 
to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is the 
furtherest advance we can make towards justice, it is a debt we owe 
to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that 
law, which warrants slavery. I know not where to stop. I could 
say many things on the subject ; a serious view of which, gives a 
gloomy perspective to future times ! — Letter to Robert Pleasants. 

I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my very soul that every one 
of my fellow beings was emancipated. As we ought with gratitude 
to admire that decree of heaven, which has numbered us among the 
free, we ought to lament and deplore the necessity of holding our 
fellow men in bondage. — Debate in Virginia Convention. 



JAMES MONROE. 

We have found that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of the 
Union ; and has been prejudicial to all the states in which it has 
existed. — Speech in the Virginia Convention. 



JOHN JAY. 

The state of New York is rarely out of my mind or heart, and I 
am often disposed to write much respecting its affairs ; but I have so 
little information as to its present political objects and operations, that 
I am afraid to attempt it. — An excellent law might be made out of the 
Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of slavery. Till America 
comes into this measure, her prayers to Heaven will be impious. This 
is a strong expression, but it is just. Were I in your legislature, I 
would present a bill for the purpose with great care, and I would 
never cease moving it till it became a law, or I ceased to be a mem- 
ber. I believe God governs the world, and I beheve it to be a maxim 
in his as in our court, that those who ask for equity ought to do it. — 
Letter from Spain, 1780. 



24 JOHN JAY. 

[As president of the " Society for promoting the manumission of 
slaves, and protecting such of them as have been or may be Hberated." 
formed in New York in 1785, he wrote a letter, from which the fol- 
lowing extracts are taken, to an English society formed in 1788 ;] 

0;u- society has been favored with your letter of the first of May 
last, and we are happy that efforts so honorable to your nation are 
making in your country to promote the cause of justice and humanity 
relative to the Africans. That they who know the value of liberty, 
and are blessed with the enjoyment of it, ought not to subject others 
to slavery, is like most other moral precepts, more generally admitted 
in theory than observed in practice. This will continue to be too 
much the case while men are impelled to action by their passions 
rather than by their reason, and while they are more solicitous to 
acquire wealth than to do as they would be done by. Hence it is 
that India and Africa experience unmerited oppression from nations 
who have been long distinguished by their attachment to their civil 
and religious liberties, but who have expended not much less blood 
and treasure in violating the rights of others than in defending their 
own. The United States are far from being irreproachable in th..^ 
respect. It undoubtedly is very inconsistent with their declarations 
on the subject of human rights, to permit a single slave to be found 
within their jurisdiction; and we confess the justice of your strictures 
on that head. 

Permit us, however, to observe, that although consequences ought 
not to deter us from doing what is right, yet it is not easy to persuade 
men iii general to act on that magnanimous and disinterested princi- 
ple. It is well known that errors, either in opinion or practice, long 
entertained or indulged, are difficult to eradicate, and particularly so 
when they have become, as it were, incorporated in the civil institu- 
tions and domestic economy of a whole people. 

[The following facts are given by his son.] 

"In 1784, my father executed an instrument for the prospective 
manumission of a slave then in his service. In the preamble of this 
paper, is the following passage : — 

' Whereas, the children of men are by nature equally free, and can- 
not, without injustice, be either reduced to or held in slavery.' 

"In 1786, he drafted and signed a petition to the Legislature of 
New York, beginning with these words : — 

'Your memorialist being deeply affected by the situation of those, 
who, although free by the laws of God, are held in slavery by the 
laws of the State.' 

" The abolition he proposed was gradual, but it was definite, cer- 
tain, and compulsory. His plan was, that a day should be fixed by 
law, atlter which every child born of a slave should be free, but should 
be held as a servant till a certain age, when he should be entitled to 
every right and privilege, without exception, to which white men were 
by law entitled ; and that voluntary manumissions should be freely 
allowed. This plan was adopted by the Legislature of New York 
during his administration. 



JOEL BARLOW. 26 

" Having thus truly stated the conduct he pursued, and the senti- 
ments he avowed in regard to slavery ; I leave it to others to decide 
how tar they ' prove an able and triumphant vindication of the Coloni- 
zation Society, its principles and practice.' " 

WILLIAM JAY. 



JOEL BARLOW. 

Nor shall I strain 
The powers of pathos in a task so vain, 
As Afric's wrongs to sing, for what avails 
To harp for you these known familiar tales ; 
To tongue mute misery, and re-rack the soul 
With crimes oft copied from that bloody scroll, 
Where slavery pens her woes, tho' 'tis but there 
We learn the weight that mortal life can bear. 
The tale might startle still the accustom'd ear, 
Still shake the nei-ve that pumps the pearly tear, 
Melt every heart, and through the nation gain 
Full many a voice to break the barbarous chain. 
But why to sympatl'V for guidance fly, 
(Her aid 's uncertain and of scant supply,) 
When your own self-excited sense affords 
A guide more sure, and every sense accords ? 
Where strong self-interest join'd with duty lies, 
Where doing right demands no sacrifice, 
Where profit, pleasure, life expanding fame 
League their allurements to support the claim. 
'Tis safest there the impleaded cause to trust, 
Men well instructed will be always just. 

Tyrants are never free, and small and great, 
All masters must be tyrants soon or late ; 
So Nature works, and oft the lordling knave 
Turns out at once a tyrant and a slave. 
Struts, cringes, bullies, begs, as courtiers must, 
Makes one a God, another treads in dust, 
Fears all alike, and filches whom he can, 
But knows no equal, finds no friend in man. 

Ah, would you not be slaves with lords and kings? 
Then be not masters, there the danger springs ; 
The whole crude system that pervades this earth, 
.Of rank, privation, privilege of birth, 
False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars, 
The rage of conquest, and the curse of wars, 
Pandora's fatal shower, all ills combined. 
That erst o'erwhelmed, and still distress mankind, 
Box'd up secure in your deliberate hand, 
Wait your behest, to fix or fly this land. 

Equality of right is Nature's plan. 
And following Nature is the march of man. 
Enslave her tribes! What, half mankind emban, 
Then read, expound, enforce the rights of man ! 
Prove plain and clear, how Nature's hand of old, 
Cast all men equal in her human mould! 
Their fibres, feehngs, reasoning powers the same, 
Like wants await them, hke desires inflame ; 
Write, speak, avenge, for ancient sufferings feel, 
Impale each tyrant on their pens of steel, 
Declare how freemen can a world create, 
And slaves and masters ruin every state. — Tht ColumbiMd, 



26 ADAMS KOSCIUSKO GATES PINKNET. 

SAMUEL ADAMS. 

" His principles on the subject of human rights, carried him far 
beyond the narrow limits which many loud asserters of tlieir own lib- 
erty have prescribed to themselves, to the recognition of this right in 
every human being. One day the wife of Mr. Adams returning 
home, informed her husband that a friend had made her a present of 
a female slave. Mr. Adams replied in a firm decided manner, ' She 
may come, but not as a slave, for a slave cannot live in my house ; if 
she comes, she must come free.'' She came, and took up her free 
abode with the family of this great champion of American liberty, 
and there she continued free, and there she died free." — Rev. Mr. 
Allen, Uxbridge, Mass. 



KOSCIUSKO. 

General Kosciusko, by his will, placed in the hands of Mr. Jeffer- 
son a sum exceeding twenty thousand dollars, to be laid out in the 
purchase of young female slaves, who were to be educated and 
emancipated. The laws of Virginia prevented the will of Kosciusko 
from being carried into effect. — Aurora, 1820. 



HORATIO GATES. 

A {ew days ago, passed through this town, the Hon. General Gates 
and lady, on their way to take possession of their new and elegant 
seat on the banks of the East river. The general, previous to leav- 
ing Virginia, summoned his numerous family and slaves about him, 
and amidst their tears of affection and gratitude, gave them their 
freedom ; and what is still better, made provision that their liberty 
should be a blessing to them. — Baltimore paper, Sept. 8, 1790. 



WILLIAM PINKNEY. 

Sir, — Iniquitous, and most dishonorable to Maryland, is that dreary 
system of partial bondage, which her laws have hitherto supported with 
a solicitude worthy of a better object, and her citizens by their prac- 
tice countenanced. 

Founded in a disgraceful traffic, to which the parent country lent 
her fostering aid, from motives of interest, but which even she would 
have disdained to encourage, had England been the destined mart 
of such inhuman merchandise, its continuance is as shameful as its 
origin. 



WILLIAM PINKNET. 27 

Eternal infamy awaits the abandoned miscreants, whose selfish 
souls could ever prompt them to rob unhappy Africa of her sons, and 
freight them hither by thousands, to poison the fair Eden of Liberty 
with the rank weed of individual bondage ! Nor is it more to the credit 
of our ancestors, that they did not command these savage spoilers to 
bear their hateful cargo to another shore, where the shrine of freedom 
knew no votaries, and every purchaser would at once be both a mas- 
ter and a slave. 

In the dawn of time, when the rough feelings of barbarism had not 
experienced the softening touches of refinement, such an unprinci- 
pled prostration of the inherent rights of human nature would have 
needed the gloss of an apology ; but to the everlasting reproach of 
Maryland, be it said, that when her citizens rivalled the nation from 
whence they emigrated, in the knowledge of moral principles, and an 
enthusiasm in the cause of general freedom, they stooped to become 
the purchasers of their fellow creatures, and to introduce an heredi- 
tary bondage into the bosom of their country, which should widen 
with every successive generation. 

For my own part, I would willingly draw the veil of oblivion over 
this disgusting scene of iniquity, but that the present abject state of 
those who are descended from these kidnapped sufferers, perpetually 
brings it forward to the memory. 

But wherefore should we confine the edge of censure to our an 
cestors, or those from whom they purchased? Are not we Et^uALLY 
guilty 7 They strewed around the seeds of slavery — we cherish and 
sustain the growth. They introduced the system — we enlarge, invigo- 
rate, and confirm it. Yes, let it be handed down to posterity, that 
the people of Maryland, who could fly to arms with the promptitude 
of Roman citizens, when the hand of oppression was lifted up against 
themselves ; who could behold their country desolated and their citi- 
zens slaughtered ; who could brave, with unshaken firmness, every 
calamity of war before they would submit to the smallest infringe- 
ment of their rights — that this very people could yet see thousands 
of their fellow creatures, within the limits of their territory, bending 
beneath an unnatural yoke ; and, instead of being assiduous to destroy 
their shackles, anxious to immortalize their duration, so that a nation 
of slaves might forever exist in a country where freedom is its boast. 

Sir, it is really matter of astonishment to me, that the people of 
Maryland do not blush at the very name of freedom. I admire that 
modesty does not keep them silent in her cause. That they who 
have, by the deliberate acts of their legislature, treated her most 
obvious dictates with contempt ; who have exhibited for a long series 
of years, a spectacle of slavery which they still are solicitous to per- 
petuate ; who, not content with exposing to the world for near a cen- 
tury, a speaking picture of abominable oppression, are still ingenious 
to prevent the hand of generosity iVoni robbing it of half its horrors ; 
that they should step forward as the zealous partisans of freedom, 
cannot but astonish a person who is not casuist enough to reconcile 
antipathies. 



2S triLLIAM PINKNEt. 

For shame, sir ! let us throw off the mask ; 'tis a cobweb one at 
best, and the world will see through it. It will not do thus, to talk 
like philosophers, and act like unrelenting tyrants ; to be perpetually 
sermonizing it, with liberty for our text, and actual oppression for our 
commentary. 

But, sir, is it possible that this body should not feel for the reputa- 
tion of Maryland ? Is national honor unworthy of consideration 1 I3 
the censure of an enlightened universe insufficient to alarm us ? It 
may proceed from the ardor of youth, perhaps, but the character of 
my country among the nations of the world is as dear to me as that 
country itself. What a motley appearance must Maryland at this mo- 
ment make in the eyes of those who view her with deliberation ! Is she 
not at once the fair temple of freedom, and the abominable nursery of 
slaves ; the school for patriots, and the foster-mother o^ petty despots; 
the asserter of human rights, and the patron of wanton oppression 1 
Here have emigrants from a land of tyranny found an asylum from 
persecution, and hero also have those, who came as rightfully free as 
the winds of heaven, found an eternal grave for the liberties of them- 
selves and their posterity ! 

In the name of God, should we not attempt to wipe away this 
stigma, as far as the impressions of the times will allow 1 If we dare 
not strain legislative authority so as to root up the evil at once, let us 
do all we dare, and lop the exuberance of its branches. I would 
sooner temporize than do nothing. At least we should show our 
wishes by it. 

But, lest character should have no more than its usual weight with 
us, let us examine into the policy of thus perpetuating slavery among 
us, and also consider this regulation in particular with the objections 
applicable to each. That the result will be favorable to us, I have no 
doubt. 

That the dangerous consequences of this system of bondage have 
not as yet been felt, does not prove they never will be. At least the 
experiment has not been sufficiently made to preclude speculation 
and conjecture. To me, sir, nothing for which I have not the evi- 
dence of my senses is more clear, than that it will one day destroy 
that reverence for liberty, which is the vital principle of a republic. 

While a majority of your citizens are accustomed to rule with the 
authority of despots, within particular limits ; while your youth are 
reared in the habit of thinking that the great rights of human nature 
are not so sacred but they may with innocence be trampled on, can 
\i be expected that the public mind should glow with that generous 
ardor in the cause of freedom, which can alone save a government 
like ours from the lurking demon of usurpation? Do you not dread 
the contamination of principle ? Have you no alarms for the continu- 
ance of that spirit which once conducted us to victory and independ- 
ence, when the talons of power were unclasped for our destruction ? 
Have you no apprehension left, that when the votaries of freedom 
sacrifice also at the gloomy altars of slavery, they will at length be- 
come apostates frora the former ? For ray own part, I have no hope 



WILLIAM PINKNEY. 2* 

that the stream of general liberty will flow for ever, unpolluted, through 
the foul mire cf partial bondage, or that they who have been habituated 
to lord it over others, will not in time be base enough to let others 
lord it over them. If they resist, it will be the struggle of pride and 
sd/ishness, not o{ principle. 

There is no maxim in politics more evidently just, than thai laws 
should be relative to the principle of government. But is the en- 
couragement of civil slavery, by legislative acts, correspondent with 
the principle of a democracy? — Call that principle what you will, the 
love of equality, as defined by some — of liberty, as understood by 
others, — such conduct is manifestly in violation of it. 

To leave the principle of a government to its own operation, without 
attempting either to favor or undermine it, is often dangerous ; but to 
make such direct attacks upon it by striking at the very root, is the 
perfection of crooked policy. Hear what has been said on this point, 
by the noblest instructer that ever informed a statesman. 

"In despotic countries," says Montesquieu, "where they are 
already in a state of political slavery, civil slavery is more tolerable 
than in other governments. Every one ought there to be contented 
with necessaries and with life. Hence the condition of a slave is 
hardly more burthensome than that of a subject. But in a monarchical 
government, where it is of the utmost consequence that human nature 
should not be debased or dispirited ; there ought to be no slavery. 
In democracies, where they are all upon an equality, and in aristocra- 
cies, where the laws ought to endeavor to make them so, as far as the 
nature of the government will permit, slavery is contrary to the spirit 
of the constitution ; it only contributes to give a power and luxury to 
the citizens which they ought not to possess." 

Such must have been the idea in England, when the general voice 
of the nation demanded the repeal of the statute of Edward VI, two 
years after its passage, by which their rogues and vagabonds were to 
be enslaved for their punishment. It could not have been compas- 
sion for the culprits that excited this aversion to the law, for they 
deserved none. But the spirit of the people could not brook the 
idea of bondage, even as a penalty judicially inflicted. They dreaded 
its consequences — they abhorred the example. — In a word, they re- 
verenced public liberty, and hence detested every species of slavery. 

Sir, the thmg is impolitic in another respect. Never will your 
country be productive ; never will its agriculture, its commerce, or 
its manufactures flourish, so long as they depend on reluctant bond- 
men for their progress. 

" Even the earth itself," (says the same celebrated author,) " which 
teems with profusion under the cultivating hand of the freeborn 
laborer, shrinks into barrenness from the contaminating sweat of a 
slave." This sentiment is not more figuratively beautiful than sub 
stantially jui^t. 

Survey the countries, sir, wiiere the hand of freedom conducts the 
ploughshare, and compare their produce with yours. Your granaries 
in this vievv apppsv' like the stoiehonses of emmets, though not sup- 



so WILLIAM PINKNET. 

plied with equal industry. To trace the cause of this disparity, be- 
tween the fruits of a freeman's voluntary labors, animated by the 
hope of profit, and the slow-paced efforts of a slave, who acts from 
compulsion only — who has no incitement to exertion but fear, no 
prospect of remuneration to encourage — would be insulting the un- 
derstanding. The cause and the efi'ect are too obvious to escape 
observation. 

It has been said "that freed men are the convenient tools of usurp- 
ation :" and I have heard allusions made to history for the confirma- 
tion of this opinion. Let, however, the records of ancient and 
modern events be scrutinized, and I will venture my belief, that no 
instance can be found to give sanction to any such idea. 

In Rome, it was clearly otherwise. We have the evidence of 
Tiberius Gracchus, confirmed by Cicero, and approved by Montes- 
quieu, that the incorporation of the freed men into the city tribes, re- 
animated the drooping spirit of democracy in that republic, and 
checked the career of patrician influence. 

So far, therefore, were properly made emancipations from contri- 
buting to the downfall of Rome, that they clearly served to procrastin- 
ate her existence, by restoring that equipoise in the constitution which 
an ambitious aristocracy were perpetually laboring to destroy. 

How much more rational, Mr. Speaker, would it be to argue that 
slaves are the fit machines by which an usurper might effect his pur- 
poses ! and there is, therefore, nothing which a free government 
ought more to dread than a diflusive private bondage within its 
territory. 

A promise of manumission might rouse every bondman to arms, 
under the conduct of an aspiring leader ; and invited by the fascin- 
ating prospect of freedom, they might raise such a storm in Maryland 
as it would be difficult to appease. Survey the conduct of the slaves 
who fought against Hannibal in the second punic war. Relying on 
the assurances of the senate, who had embodied them with the Roman 
legions, that conquest should give them liberty, not a man disgraced 
himself by flight ; but though new, perhaps, to the field of battle, they 
contended with the resolution of veterans. — With the same prompti- 
tude and intrepidity would they have turned their arms against the 
senate themselves, if the same assurances had been given them by 
enterprising citizens who sought their destruction from motives of 
ambition or revenge. The love of liberty is inherent in human 
nature. To stifle or annihilate it, though • not impossible, is yet 
difficult to be accomplished. Easy to be wrought upon, as well as 
powerful and active in its exertions, wherever it is not gratified there 
is danger. Gratify it, and you ensure your safety. Thus did Sylla 
think, who, before he abdicated the dictatorship, gave freedom to ten 
thousand slaves, and lands to a number of legions. By these means 
was he enabled, notwithstanding all his preceding enormities, to live 
unmolested as a private citizen, in the bosom of that very country 
where he had acted the most hateful deeds of cruelty and usurpation. 
For, by m.anuniining these slaves, the usurper secured their fidelity 



WARNER MIFFLIN- 31 

and attachment for ever, and disposed them to support and revenge 
his cause at every possible hazard. Rome knew this, and therefore 
Sylla was secure in his retirement. 

This example shows that slaves are the proper, natural implements 
of usurpation, and therefore a serious and alarming evil in every free 
community. With much to hope for by a change, and nothing to 
lose, they have no fears of consequences. Despoiled of their rights 
by the acts of government and its citizens, they have no checks of 
pity, or of conscience, but are stimulated by the desire of revenge, to 
spread wide the horrors of desolation, and to subvert the foundation 
of that liberty of which they have never participated, and which they 
have only been permitted to envy in others. 

But where slaves are manumitted by government, or in conse- 
quence of its provisions, the same motives which have attached them 
to tyrants, when the act of emancipation has flowed from them, would 
then attach them to government. They are then no longer the crea- 
tures of despotism. They are bound by gratitude, as well as by in- 
terest, to seek the welfare of that country from which they have 
derived the restoration of their plundered rights, and with whose 
prosperity their own is inseparably involved. All apostacy from 
these principles, which form the good citizen, would, under such cir- 
cumstances, be next to impossible. When we see freed men scru- 
pulously faithful to a lawless, abandoned villain, from whom they have 
received their liberty, can we suppose that they will reward the like 
bounty of a free government with the turbulence of faction, or the 
seditious plots of treason ? He who best knows the value of a bless- 
ing, is generally the most assiduous in its preservation ; and no man 
is so competent to judge of that value as he from whom the blessing 
has deen detained. Hence the man that has felt the yoke of bondage 
must for ever prove the asserter of freedom, if he is fairly admitted to 
the equal enjoyment of its benefits. — Speech in the Maryland House 
of Delegates, 1789. 



WARNER MIFFLIN. 

A serious expostulation with the members of the House of Represent- 
atives of the United States. — But whether you will hear or forbear, I 
think it my duty to tell you plainly, that 1 believe that the blood of 
the slain, and the oppression exercised in Africa, promoted by Amer- 
icans, and in this country also, will stick to the skirts of every indi- 
vidual of your body, who exercise the powers of legislation, and do not 
exert their talents to clear themselves of this abomination, when they 
shall be arraigned before the tremendous bar of the judgment seat of 
Him who will not fail to do right, in rendering unto every man his due ; 
even Him who early declared, " at the hand of every man's brother 
will I require the life of man ;" before whom the natural black skin 
of the body will never occasion such degradation. I desire to ap- 



^3 WARNER MIFFLIN. 

proach you with proper and due respect, in the temper of a Christian, 
and the firmness of a veteran American freeman, to plead the cause 
of injured innocence, and open my mouth for my oppressed brethren, 
who cannot open theirs for themselves. I ask no pecuniary advan- 
tage for myself; neither post nor pension. I feel the sweets of 
American hberty ; I trust I am sensible of, and thankful for the favor; 
and am not easy to partake of mine so partially, and see, and hear, 
and know of my brethren and fellow mortals being so arbitrarily and 
cruelly deprived of theirs, and not enter my protest. I desire to 
have this favor and blessing continued to myself and posterity, and 
cannot but view the tenure, both to myself and countrymen, as very 
precarious, while a plea is founded on the general constitution, in bar 
of the rights of man, and the equal distribution of justice being con- 
firmed ; that the views of a righteous government would be to promote 
the welfare of mankind universally, as well those of other nations, as 
the subjects or citizens of its own ; and, therefore, that it is obliga- 
tory on the United States, to prevent the citizens thereof injuring the 
inhabitants of Africa, as those of one state the citizens of another ; 
and I doubt not, in the least, if Africa was in a situation to send 
fleets and armies here to retaliate, but congress would soon devise 
means, without violating the constitution, to prevent our citizens 
from aggravating them. The almost daily accounts I have of the 
inhumanity perpetrated in these states, on this race of men, distresses 
me night and day, and brings the subject of the slave-trade with more 
pressure on my spirit ; and I believe I feel a measure of the same 
obligation that the prophet did when he was ordered to " cry aloud, 
spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, aud show my people their 
transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." And here I 
think I can show that our nation is revolting from the law of God, 
the law of reason and humanity, and the just principles of govern- 
ment, and with rapid strides establishing tyranny and oppression. 

In a pamphlet, entitled " Observations on the American Revolution" 
published by order of Congress, in 1779, the following sentiments 
are declared to the world, viz : 

The great principle (of government) is and ever will remain in 
force, tliat men are by nature free ; as accountable to him that made 
them, they must be so ; and so long as we have any idea of divine 
justice, we must associate that of human freedom. Whether men 
can part with their liberty, is among the questions which have exer- 
cised the ablest writers ; but it is concluded on all hands, that the 
right to be free can never be alienated — still less is it practicable for 
one generation to mortgage the privileges of another. 

Humane petitions have been presented to excite in congress 
benevolent feelings for the sufferings of our fellow-citizens under 
cruel bondage to the Turks and Algerines, and that the national 
power and influence might be exerted for their relief; with this vir- 
tuous application I unite, but lament that any of my countrymen, 
who are distinguished as men eminently qualified for public stations. 



WILLIAM EATON. 83 

should be so enslaved by illiberal prejudice as to treat with contempt 
a like solicitude for another class of men still more grievously op- 
pressed. 

I profess freely, and am willing my profession was known over the 
world, that I feel the calls of humanity as strong towards an African 
in America^ as an American in Algiers, both being my brethren ; 
especially as I am informed the Algerine treats his slave with more 
humanity ,• and I believe the sin of oppression on the part of the 
American is greatest in the sight of the Father of the family of 
mankind. 

I hope some will excuse my inserting, in this apologetic expostu- 
lation, a few texts of scripture as they revive — I trust there are some 
of our rulers who yet beheve in the authenticity of the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; what revives now, is the declaration of our Lord, Matt. 25th 
chapter and 41st verse : " Then shall he say also to them on the left 
hand, depart from me ye cursed,^' &c. They also shall answer him, 
saying — " When saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, 
or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee ?" His 
answer then you may read, " Inasmuch as you did it not to the least 
of these, ye did it not to me." 

WARNER MIFFLIN. 

Kent County, Delaware, 2d of 1st mo. 1793. 



WILLIAM EATON. 

[The Tunisians had captured nine hundred and twenty Sardinian 
slaves, of whom General Eaton thus makes mention :] 

" Many have died of grief, and the others linger out a life less 
tolerable than death. Alas — remorse seizes my whole soul when I 
reflect, that this is indeed but a copy of the very barbarity which my 
eyes have seen in my own native country. And yet we boast of 
liberty and national justice. How frequently in the southern states 
of my own country, have I seen weeping mothers leading the guilt- 
less infant to the sales with as deep anguish as if they led them to 
the slaughter ; and yet felt my bosom tranquil in the view of these 
aggressions on defenceless humanity. But when I see the same 
enormities practised upon beings whose complexions and blood claim 
kindred with my own, I curse the perpetrators, and weep over the 
wretched victims of their rapacity. Indeed, truth and justice demand 
from me the confession, that the Christian slaves among the barba- 
rians of Africa, are treated with more humanity than the African 
slaves among professing Christians of civilized America ; and yet 
here sensibility bleeds at every pore for the wretches whom fate has 
doomed to slavery." — Letter to his wife. 



34 WILLIAM RAY CAPTAIN RILET. 



WILLIAM RAY. 

At Georgia's southern point begin ye, 
And travel up through old Virginia, 
What's to be seen where people boast 
Of being friends to freedom most? 

Behold the lordly planter stand, 
The lash still reeking in his hand, 
O'er the poor slave whose only sin is 
That his, alas ! a sable skin is ; 
This gives the wretch whose hide is white, 
To slay him an undoubted right; 
From country and his friends compel him 
To starve, to murder, or to sell him ; 
Whose treatment crueller and worse is 
Than that of cattle, swine, or horses : 
And e'en they often say, the slave 
Has not, like him, a soul to save. 

Are you republicans ? — away ! 
'Tis blasphemy the word to say. 
You talk of freedom? Out, for shame! 
Your lips contaminate the name. 
How dare you prate of public good, 
Your hands oesmear'd with human blood ? 
How dare you lift those hands to heav'n, 
And ask or hope to be forgiven ? 
How dare you breathe the wounded air, 
That wafts to heaven the negro's prayer? 
How dare you tread the conscious earth, 
That gave mankind an equal birth ? 
And while you thus inflict the rod, 
How dare you say there is a God 
That will, m justice, from the skies, 
Hear and avenge his creature's cries ? 
" Slaves to be sold," hark, what a sound ? 
Ye give America a wound, 
A scar, a stigma of disgrace. 
Which you nor time can e'er efface ; 
And prove, of nations yet unborn. 
The curse, the hatred, and the scorn ! 

The Horrors of Slavery, w Tars of Tripoli. 



CAPTAIN RILEY. 

Strange as it may seem to the philanthropist, my free and proud- 
spirited countrymen still hold a million and a half of human beings 
in the most cruel bonds of slavery ; who are kept at hard labor, and 
smarting under the lash of inhuman mercenary drivers ; in many 
instances enduring the miseries of hunger, thirst, imprisonment, cold, 
nakedness, and even tortures. This is no picture of the imagination. 
For the honor of human nature, I wish likenesses were nowhere to 
be found ! I myself have witnessed such scenes in different parts of 
my own country ; and the bare recollection of them now chills my 
blood with honor. — Riley's Narrative. 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES-^CLINTON TOMPKINS. 35 



U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

" Resolved, That the Speaker be requested to acknowledge the 
receipt and acceptance of Clarkson's History of Slavery, presented 
by the American Convention for promoting the abohtion of slavery, 
and improving the condition of the Africans, and that the said vk^ork 
be deposited in the library." — Resolution, Feb. 18, 1809. 



DE WITT CLINTON. 

During this period of his legislative career (1797), a large portion 
of his attention was bestowed on the protection of the public health, 
the promotion of agriculture, manufactures, and the arts, the gradual 
abolition of slavery, &c. 

The record of the proceedings of the senate of New York for the 
sessions of 1809, 1810, and 1811, exhibits proofs of Mr. Clinton's 
great usefulness. Under his auspices, the New- York Historical 
Society was incorporated — the Orphan Asylum and Free School So- 
cieties were fostered and encouraged. He introduced laws to prevent 
kidnapping, or the further introduction of slaves, and to punish those 
who should treat them inhumanly. — De Wili Clinton's Life in Dela- 
•plaine's Repository. 



DANIEL D. TOMPKINS. 

To devise the means for the gradual and ultimate extermination 
from amongst us of slavery, that reproach of a free people, is a work 
worthy the representatives of a polished and enlightened nation. 

Allow me here to observe, that the law which authorizes the trans- 
portation of slaves convicted of offences, is very generally considered 
impolitic and unjust. Impolitic, because it cherishes inducements in 
the master, to whom alone these unfortunate creatures can look for 
friendship and protection, to aggravate, to tempt, or to entrap the slave 
into an error — to operate upon his ignorance or his fears, to confess 
a charge, or to withhold from him the means of employing counsel 
for defence, or of establishing a reputation which is frequently the 
only shield against a criminal allegation. This inducement will be 
peculiarly strong, where the slave is of that description, the sale of 
which is prohibited ; for a conviction will enable the master to evade 
that restriction, and to make a lucrative disposition of what might 
otherwise be a burthen to him. It is unjust, because transportation 
is added to the full sentence which may be pronounced upon others. 
To inflict less punishment for the crimes of those who have always 
breathed the air of freedom, who have been benefited by polished 



36 ANDREW JACKSON. 

society, and by literary, moral, and religious instruction and example, 
than to the passions and frailties of the poor, untutored, unrefined, 
and unfortunate victims of slavery, is a palpable inversion of a pre- 
cept of our benevolent Redeemer. The servant " that knew not, and 
did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes; 
for unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." 
— Speech to New- York Legislature, Jan. 8, 1812. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 

Proclamation to the free colored inhabitants of Louisiana. — Through 
a mistaken policy, you have heretofore been deprived of a participa- 
tion in the glorious struggle for national rights in which our country 
is engaged. This no longer shall exist. 

As sons of freedom, you are now called upon to defend our most 
inestimable blessing. As Americans, your country looks with con- 
fidence to her adopted children, for a valorous support, as a faithful 
return for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and equitable gov- 
ernment. As fathers, husbands, and brothers, you are summoned 
to rally round the standard of the eagle, to defend all which is dear in 
existence. 

Your country, although calling for your exertions, does not wish 
you to engage in the cause, without amply remunerating you for the 
services rendered. Your intelligent minds are not to be led away by 
false representations. Your love of honor would cause you to 
despise the man who should attempt to deceive you. In the sin- 
cerity of a soldier, and the language of truth, I address you. 

To every noble hearted, generous freeman of color, volunteering 
to serve during the present contest with Great Britain, and no longer, 
there will be paid the same bounty, in money and lands, now received 
by the white soldiers of the United States, viz : one hundred and 
twenty-four dollars in money, and one hundred and sixty acres of 
land. The non-commissioned officers and privates will, also, be 
entitled to the same monthly pay, and daily rations and clothes, fur- 
nished to any American soldier. 

On enrolling yourselves in companies, the major-general com- 
manding will select officers for your government from your white 
fellow-citizens. Your non-commissioned officers will be appointed 
from among yourselves. 

Due regard will be paid to the feelings of freemen and soldiers. 
You will not, by being associated with white men in the same corps, 
be exposed to improper comparisons or unjust sarcasm. As a dis- 
tinct, independent battalion or regiment, pursuing the path of glory, 
you will, undivided, receive the applause and gratitude of your coun- 
trymen. 

To assure you of the sincerity of my intentions and my anxiety to 
engage your invaluable services to our country, I have communicated 



JOSEPH STORY. 37 

my wishes to the governor of Louisiana, who is fully informed as to 
the manner of enrolment, and will give you every necessary informa- 
tion on the subject of this address. 

ANDREW JACKSON, 

Major General commanding. 
Head Quarters, 7th Military District, ) 
Mobile, Sept. 21, 1814. \ 

[On December IS, 1814, General Jackson issued in tJie French 
language the following.'] 

Address to the Free People of Color. 

* Soldiers ! When on the banks of the Mobile, I called you to take 
up arms, inviting you to partake the perils and glory of your white 
fellow-citizens, I expected much from you ; for I was not ignorant 
that you possessed qualities most formidable to an invading enemy. 
I knew with what fortitude you could endure hunger and thirst, and 
all the fatigues of a campaign. I knew well, how you loved your 
native country, and that you had, as well as ourselves, to defend 
what man holds most dear — his parents, relations, wife, children, and 
property. You have done more than I expected. In addition to the 
previous qualities I before knew you to possess, I found, moreover, 
among you a noble enthusiasm, which leads to the performance of 
great things. 

Soldiers ! The President of the United States shall hear how 
praiseworthy was your conduct in the hour of danger, and the Repre- 
sentatives of the American people will, I doubt not, give you the 
praise your exploits entitle you to. Your general anticipates them 
in applauding your noble ardor. 

The enemy approaches ; his vessels cover our lakes ; our brave 
citizens are united, and all contention has ceased among them. 
Their only dispute is, who shall win the prize of valor, or who the 
most glory, its noblest reward. 
By Order. 

THOMAS BUTLER, Aid-de-camp. 



JOSEPH STORY. 

The existence of slavery under any shape is so repugnant to the 
natural rights of man and the dictates of justice, that it seems difficult 
to find for it any adequate justification. It undoubtedly had its 
origin in times of barbarism, and was the ordinary lot of those con- 
quered in war. It was supposed the conqueror had a right to take 
the life of his captive, and by consequence might well bind him to 
perpetual servitude. But the position itself on which this supposed 
right is founded, is not true. No man has a right to kill his enemy, 
except in cH«e? '^i absolute necessity; and this absolute necessity 



38 JOSEPH STORY. 

ceases to exist even in the estimation of the conqueror himself, when 
he has spared the Hfe of his prisoner. And even, if in such a case 
it were possible to contend for the right of slavery, as to the prisoner 
himself, it is impossible that it can justly extend to his innocent off- 
spring through the whole line of descent. 

Congress, with a promptitude which does honor to their humanity 
and wisdom, proceeded, in 1794, to pass a law to prohibit the traffic 
of slaves by our citizens in all cases not within the reach of the con- 
stitutional restriction ; and thus cut off the whole traffic between 
foreign ports. In the year 1800, an additional law was passed to 
enforce the former enactments ; and in the year 1807, (the epoch, 
when the constitutional restriction was to cease, beginning with the 
ensuing year) a general prohibition of the traffic as well in our 
domestic as foreign trade, wa^ proudly incorporated into our statute 
book. About the same period, the British government, after the 
most severe opposition from slave dealers and their West Indian 
friends, achieved a similar measure, and enacted general prohibition 
of the trade, as well to foreign ports as to their colonies. This act 
was indeed the triumph of virtue, of reason, and of humanity over the 
hard-heartedness of avarice ; and while it was adorned by the brilliant 
talents of Pitt, Fox, Romilly, and Wilberforce, let us never forget that 
its success was principally owing to the modest, but persevering 
labors of the Quakers ; and above all, to the resolute patience and 
noble philanthropy of a man immortalized by his virtues, the intrepid 
Thomas Clarkson. 

It is a most cheering circumstance, that the examples of the 
United States and Great Britain in thus abolishing the slave-trade, 
have, through the strenuous exertions of the latter, been generally 
approved throughout the continent of Europe. The government of 
Great Britain has, indeed, employed the most indefatigable and per- 
severing diligence to accomplish this desirable object ; and treaties 
have been made by her with all the principal foreign powers, provid- 
ing for a total abolition of the trade within a very short period. May 
America not be behind her in this glorious work ; but by a generous 
competition in various deeds, restore the degraded African to his 
natural rights, and strike his manacles from the bloody hands of his 
oppressors. 

By our laws, it is made an offence for any person to import or 
bring, in any manner whatsoever, into the United States or its terri- 
tories, from any foreign country, any negro, mulatto, or person of 
color, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of him as a slave, or to be 
held to service or labor. It is also made an offence for any citizen 
or other person as master, owner, or factor, to build, fit, equip, load, 
or otherwise prepare any vessel in any of our ports, or to cause any 
vessel to sail from any port whatsoever, for the purpose of procuring 
any negro, mulatto, or person of color from any foreign country, to 
be transported to any port or place whatsoever, to beheld, sold, or 
disposed of as a slave, or to he held to service or labor. It is also 
made an ofTence for 3.pv r;*iri=^, -^r other person, resident within our 



JOSEPH STORY. 39 

jurisdiction, to take on board, receive, or transport in any vessel 
from the coast of Africa, or any other foreign country, or from sea, 
any negro, mulatto, or person of color, not an inhabitant of, or held 
to service in the United States, for the purpose of holding, selling, 
or disposing of such person as a slave, or to be held to service or 
labor. 

It is also made an offence for any person within our jurisdiction, 
to hold, purchase, sell, or otherwise dispose of any negro, mulatto, or 
person of color for a slave, or to be held to service or labor, who 
shall have been imported into the United States in violation of our 
laws — and in general the prohibitions in these cases extend to all 
persons who shall abet or aid in these illegal designs. These 
offences are visited as well with severe pecuniary and personal pen- 
alties, as with the forfeiture of the vessel and equipments, which 
have been employed in the furtherance of these illegal projects; and 
in general, a moiety of the pecuniary penalties and forfeitures is given 
to any person who shall inform against the ofienders and prosecute 
them to conviction. The President of the United States is also 
authorized to employ our armed vessels and revenue cutters to cruise 
on the seas for the purpose of arresting all vessels and persons en- 
gaged in this traffic in violation of our laws ; and bounties as well as 
a inoiety of the captured property are given to the captors to stimu- 
late them in the discharge of their duty. 

Under such circumstances, it might well be supposed that the 
slave-trade would, in practice, be extinguished — that virtuous men 
would by their abhorrence, stay its polluted march, and wicked men 
would be overawed by its potent punishment. But unfortunately the 
case is far otherwise. We have but too many melancholy proofs 
from unquestionable sources, that it is still carried on with all the 
implacable ferocity and insatiable rapacity of former times. Avarice 
has grown more subtle in its evasion ; and watches and seizes its 
prey with an appetite quickened, rather than suppressed, by its guilty 
vigils. American citizens are steeped up to their very mouths (I 
scarcely use too bold a figure) in this stream of iniquity. They 
throng the coasts of Africa under the stained flags of Spain and 
Portugal, sometimes seUing abroad " their cargoes of despair," and 
sometimes bringing them into some of our southern ports, and there 
under the forms of the law defeating the purposes of the law itself, 
and legalizing their inhuman but prolituble adventures. I wish I 
could say that New England and New England men were free from 
this deep pollution. But there is some reason to believe, that they 
who drive a loathsome traffic, " and buy the muscles and the bones 
of men," are to be found here also. It is to be hoped the number is 
small ; but our cheeks may well burn with shame while a solitary 
case is permitted to go unpunished. 

And, gentlemen, how can we justify ourselves or apologize for an 
indifference to this subject? Our constitutions of government have 
declared that all men are born free and equal, and have certain in- 
alienable rights, among which are the right of enjoying their lives. 



40 JOaEPH STORY. 

liberties, and property, and of seeking and obtaining their own safety 
and happiness. May not the miserable African ask, " Am J not a 
man and a brother?" We boast of our noble struggle against the 
encroachments of tyranny, but do we forget that it assumed the 
mildest form in which authority ever assailed the rights of its subjects, 
and yet that there are men among us who think it no wrong to con- 
demn the shivering negro to perpetual slavery ? 

We believe in the Christian religion. It commands us to have 
good will to all men ; to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do 
unto all men as we would they should do unto us. It declares our 
accountability to the Supreme God for all our actions, and holds out 
to us a state of future rewards and punishments as the sanction by 
which our conduct is to be regulated. And yet there are men calling 
themselves Christians, who degrade the negro by ignorance to a level 
with the brutes, and deprive him of all the consolations of religion. 
He alone, of all the rational creation, they seem to think, is to be at 
once accountable for his actions, and yet his actions are not to be at 
his own disposal ; but his mind, his body, and his feelings are to be 
sold to perpetual bondage. To me it appears perfectly clear that the 
slave-trade is equally repugnant to the dictates of reason and religion, 
and is an offence equally against the laws of God and man. Yet 
strange to tell, one of the pretences upon which the modern slavery 
of the Africans was justified, was the " duty of converting the hea- 
then." * * * * I forbear to trace the subsequent 
scenes of their miserable lives, worn out in toils from which they can 
receive no profit, and oppressed with wrongs from which they can 
hope for no rehef. 

The scenes which I have described are almost literally copied from 
the most authentic and unquestionable narrative, published under the 
highest authority. They present a picture of human wretchedness 
and human depravity, which the boldest imagination would hardly 
have dared to portray, and from which (one should think) the most 
abandoned profligate would shrink with horror. Let it be considered 
that this wretchedness does not arise from the awful visitation of 
Providence in the shape of plagues, famines, or earthquakes, the 
natural scourges of mankind ; but is inflicted by man on man from the 
accursed love of gold. May we not justly dread the displeasure of 
that Almighty Being who is the common father of us all, if we do not 
by all means within our power, endeavor to suppress such infamous 
cruelties. If we cannot, like the good Samaritan, bind up the wounds 
and soothe the miseries of the friendless Africans, let us not, like the 
Levite, pass with sullen indifference on the other side. What sight 
can be more acceptable in the eyes of heaven than of a good man 
struggling in the cause of oppressed humanity ? Wliat consolation 
can be more sweet in a dying hour, than the recollection, that at 
least one human being may have been saved from sacrifice by our 
vigilance in enforcing the law ] — From Judge Story's Charge to the 
Grand Jury of the U. S. Circuit Court, in Portsmouth, N. H., May 
Term, 1820. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 41 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 



Important as I deem it, to discuss on all proper occasions, the 
policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important 
to maintain the right of such discussion, in its full and just extent. 
Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it 
necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a dis- 
position to check the freedom of inquiry by extravagant and uncon- 
stitutional pretences, the firmer shall be the tone, in which I shall 
assert, and the freer the manner, in which I shall exercise it. It is 
the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass 
public measures, and the merits of public men. It is a " home-bred 
right ;" a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every 
house, cottage, and cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into 
the controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, 
or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it 
belongs to public life as a duty ; and it is the last duty, which those, 
whose representative I am, shall find me to abandon. Aiming at all 
times to be courteous and temperate in its use, except when the right 
itself shall be questioned ; I shall then carry it to its extent. I shall 
place myself on the extreme boundary of my rights, and bid defiance 
to any arm, that would move me from my ground. This high con- 
stitutional privilege I shall defend and exercise within this house, and 
without this house, and in all places, in time of war, in time of peace, 
and at all times. Living, I shall assert it ; dying, I shall assert it ; and 
should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of 
God, I will still leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the 
example of a manly, independent, and conscientious discharge of 
them. — Speech in Congress, 1814. 

If there be, within the extent of our knowledge and influence, any 
participation in this traffic in slaves, let us pledge ourselves upon the 
Rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the 
land of the pilgrims should bear the shame longer. Let that spot be 
purified, or let it be set aside from the Christian world ; let it be put 
out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards ; and let 
civilized men henceforth have no communion with it. 

I invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who minister at 
her altar, that they exercise the wholesome and necessary severity of 
the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim 
its denunciation of those crimes, and add its solemn sanction to the 
authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent, whenever or wher- 
ever there may be a sinner, bloody with this guilt, within the hearing 
of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust. 

6 



42 N. Y. LEGISLATURE WILLIAM WIRT JOHN RANDOi^rii. 



NEW-YORK LEGISLATURE. 

On the 20th day of January, 1820, the following preamble and 
resolutions were taken up in the senate (having passed the house) 
of the New-York Legislature, and unanimously passed. [Mr. Van 
Buren, who was then in the senate of that state, voted in favor of 
them.] 

Whereas, the inhibiting the further extension of slavery in the 
United States, is a subject of deep concern to the people of this 
state : and whereas, we consider slavery as an evil much to be 
deplored, and that every constitutional barrier should be interposed 
to prevent its further extension ; and that the constitution of the 
United States clearly gives congress the right to require new states, 
not comprised within the original boundary of the United States, to 
make the prohibition of slavery a condition of their admission into the 
Union : Therefore, 

Resolved, (if the honorable senate concur therein) That our sen- 
ators be instructed, and our members of congress be requested, to 
oppose the admission as a state into the Union, of any territory not 
comprised as aforesaid, without making the prohibition of slavery 
therein an indispensable condition of admission. 



WILLIAM WIRT. 

Slavery was contrary to the laws of nature and of nations ; and 
that the law of South Carolina, concerning seizing colored seamen, 
was unconstitutional. * * * * Last and lowest, a feculum of 
beings called overseers — the most abject, degraded, unprincipled 
race — always cap in hand to the dons who employ them, and fur- 
nishing materials for their pride, insolence, and love of dominion. — 
Life of Patrick Henry. 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 

Dissipation, as well as power or prosperity, hardens the heart, but 
avarice deadens it to every feeling but the thirst for riches. Avarice 
alone could have produced the slave trade. Avarice alone can drive, 
as it does drive, this infernal traffic, and the wretched victims of it, 
like so many posthorses, whipped to death in a mail coach. Ambi- 
tion has its cover-sluts, in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glo- 
rious war ; but where are the trophies of avarice ? The handcuff, the 
manacle, and the blood-stained cowhide ! What man is worse received 
in society for being a hard master ? Who denies the hand of a sister 
or daughter to such monsters ? — nay, they have even appeared in " the 



JOHN RANDOLPH. 43 

abused shape of the vilest of women." I say nothing of India, or 
Amboyna — of Cortes, or Pizarro. — Southern Literary Messenger. 

[In March, 1816, John Randolph submitted the following resolu- 
tion to the House of Representatives :] " Resolved, That a committee 
be appointed, to mquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal 
traffic of slaves, carried on in and through the District of Columbia, 
and to report whether any, and what measures are necessary for put- 
ting a stop to the same." 

"Virginia is so impoverished by the system of slavery, that the tables 
will sooner or later be turned, and the slaves will advertise for runa- 
way masters." 

" Sir, I neither envy the head nor the heart of that man from the 
North, who rises here to defend slavery upon principle." — Rebuke of 
Edward Everett, in Congress, 1820. 

The General Court has decided that the will of Mr. Randolph, 
dated in December, 1821, with its codicil annexed, the codicil of 
1826, the four codicils of 1828, and the codicil of 1831, written in 
London, should be admitted to probate as the last will and testament 
of that extraordinary man. The effect of these instruirients is to 
liberate his slaves, and provide for their removal to one of the states 
or territories. The Court was nearly unanimous, one Judge only 
dissenting. An appeal, we understand, was taken to the Court of 
Appeals. — Rich. Enq. 

" In the name of God, amen. I, John Randolph, of Roanoke, in 
the county of Charlotte, do ordain this writing, written with my own 
hand, this fourth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and nine- 
teen, to be my last will and testament, hereby revoking all others 
whatsoever. 

" I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells 
me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the 
deepest regret to me, that'the circumstances under which I inherited 
them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land, 
have prevented my emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is/my 
full intention to do in case I can accomplish it. 

"All the rest and residue of my estate, (with exceptions hereinafter 
made,) whether real or personal, I bequeath to William Leigh, Esq., 
of Halifax, Attorney at Law — to the Rev. William Meade, of Frede- 
rick, and to Francis Scott Key, Esq., of Georgetown, District of 
Columbia, in trust, for the following uses and purposes, viz : 1st. To 
provide one or more tracts of land in any of the states or territories, 
not exceeding, in the whole, four thousand acres, nor less than two 
thousand acres — to be partitioned and proportioned by them, in such 
a manner as to them may seem best, among the said slaves, 2d. 
To pay the expense of their removal, and of furnishing them with 
necessary cabins, clothes and utensils. 3d. To pay the expenses, 
not exceeding four hundred dollais per annum, of the education of 
John Randolph Clay, until he shall arrive at the age of twenty-three 
— leaving with him my injunction, to scorn to eat the bread of idle- 
ness or dependence. 



44 THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 

" Codicil.*— It is my will and desire, that my old servants, Essex 
and Hetty his wife, be made quite comfortable. 

" JOHN RANDOLPH, of Roanoke.'' 

[The laws of Virginia prohibit emancipation without the removal 
of the emancipated from the state.] 



THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 

I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of arming the state for 
internal defence. I will unite with them in any effort to restore con- 
fidence to the public mind, and to conduce to the sense of the safety 
of our wives, and our children. Yet, sir, I must ask, upon whom is 
to fall the burden of this defence 1 not upon the lordly masters of their 
hundred slaves, who will never turn out except to retire with their 
families when danger threatens. No, sir; it is to fall upon the less 
wealthy class of our citizens ; chiefy upon the nan slaveholder. I have 
known patrols turned out where there ivas not a slaveholder among 
them, and this is the practice of the country. I have slept in times 
of alarm quietly in bed, without having a thought of care, while these 
individuals, owning none of this property themselves, were patrolling 
under a compulsory process, for a pittance of seventy-five cents per 
twelve hours, the very curtilage of my house, and guarding that pro- 
perty, which was alike dangerous to them and myself. After all, this 
is but an expedient. As this population becomes more numerous, it 
becomes less productive. Your guard must be increased, until finally 
its profits will not pay for the expense of its subjection. Slavery has 
the effect of lessening the free population of a country. The wealthy 
are not dependent upon the poor for those aids, and those services, 
compensation for which, enables the poor man to give bread to his 
family. The ordinary mechanic arts are all practised by slaves. In 
the servitude of Europe, in the middle ages, in years of famine, the 
poor had to barter their liberty for bread : they had to surrender their 
liberty to some wealthy man to save their families from the horrors 
of famine. The slave was sustained in sickness and in famine upon 
the wealth of his master-, who preserved him as he would any other 
species of property. All the sources of the poor man's support were 
absorbed by him. In this country, he cannot become a slave, but he 
flies to some other country more congenial to his condition, and 
where he who supports himself by honest labor is not degraded in 
his caste. Those who remain, relying upon the support of casual 
employment, often become more degraded in their condition, than 
the slaves themselves. 

The gentleman has spoken of the increase of the female slaves 
being a part of the profit ; it is admitted ; but no great evil can be 
averted, no good ;Utained, without some inconvenience. It may be 
questioned, how far it is desirable to foster and encourage this branch 
of profit. It i3 a practice, and an increasing practice in parts of Vir- 



THOMAS JEFFERSON RANDOLPH. 46 

ginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable mind, a 
patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient dominion, 
rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons 
in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie, where 
men are to be reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles. Is 
it better, is it not worse, than the slave trade ; that trade which enlisted 
the labor of the good and wise of every creed, and every chme, to 
abolish it 1 The trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, 
aspect and manner, from the merchant who has brought him from the 
interior. The ties of father, mother, husband and child, have all been 
rent in twain ; before he receives him, his soul has become callous. 
But here, sir, individuals, whom the master has known from infancy, 
whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of childhood, who 
have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from the 
mother's arms, and sells into a strange country, among strange people, 
subject to cruel taskmasters. 

He has attempted to justify slavery here, because it exists in Africa, 
and has stated that it exists all over the world. Upon the same prin- 
ciple, he could justify Mahometanism, with its plurality of wives, petty 
wars for plunder, robbery and murder, or any other of the abomina- 
tions and enormities of savage tribes. Does slavery exist in any part 
of civilized Europe ? No, sir, in no part of it. America is the only 
civilized Christian nation that bears the opprobrium. In every other 
couf.try, where civilization and Christianity have existed together, 
they have erased it from their codes • they have blotted it out from the 
page of their history. He has attempted to reconcile us to the dan- 
gers of negro slavery, by comparison with slavery as it existed among 
the ancients. There is one view of this subject which has escaped 
the gentleman, and which I think reverses his conclusions. The 
slaves of the ancients were of the same species of the human race ; 
they were of different nations it is true, taken in war, but nevertheless 
white, bearing no distinctive specific mark, stamped upon their coun- 
tenances, which should designate them through illimitable generations 
as a distinct race. In the march of events their blood mingled with 
their masters ; all varieties of dialect or language, the slight differ- 
ences of aspect and countenance, became blended into one mass. 
These, from individual genius and assiduity, from high moral and 
intellectual qualities, could rise separately into higher classes. Such 
was Esop, Pha^drus, Narses, Terence, and the father of Juvenal, who 
have transmitted their names to an immortal posterity, while their 
proud masters sleep in oblivion with the common herd. To rise by 
merit was practicable ; there was no inducement to attempt to elevate 
violently a caste, with whom they had no community of interest or 
feeling. The ancients even forbade badges of slavery to be worn, 
fearing to mark them too plainly, lest they might see their own 
strength ; and with this precaution, Italy was ravaged by servile wars. 
The slave Spartacus kept the field for three years in the heart of 
Italy, repeatedly defeating consular armies. But, sir, how different 
is it with the African ; nature has stamped upon him the indelible 



46 B. SWAIN GOVERNOR RANDOLPH. 

mark of his species : no lapse of time or generations, no clime or cul- 
ture, can weaken or obliterate her impression from his countenance. 
On the burning sands of Africa, in the snowy regions of Canada, 
as the naked hunter of his native woods, pursuing with the poisoned 
dart the lion or the elephant, or here, sir, after two hundred years of 
culture, it remains unfaded, unchanged, and unchangeable. No 
matter what the grandeur of his soul, the elevation of his thought, 
the extent of his knowledge, or the purity of his character ; he may 
be a Newton or a Des Cartes, a Tell or a Washington, he is chained 
down by adamantine fetters ; he cannot rear himself from the earth 
without elevating his whole race with him. 

The gentleman has appealed to the Christian religion in justifica- 
tion of slavery. I would ask him upon what part of those pure doc- 
trines does he rely ; to which of those subhme precepts does he 
advert, to sustain his position? Is it that which teaches charity, 
justice, and good-will to all 1 or is it that which teaches " that ye do 
unto others as ye would they should do unto you 1" — Speech in the 
Virginia Legislature. 



B. SWAIN. 

Is it nothing to us, that seventeen hundred thousand of the people 
of our country, are doomed illegally to the most abject and vile sla- 
very that was ever tolerated on flie face of the earth ] Are Carolinians 
deaf to the piercing cz'ies of humanity ? Are they insensible to the 
demands of justice ? Let any man of spirit and feeling, for a moment 
cast his thoughts over the land of slavery — think of the nakedness of 
some, the hungry yearnings of others, the flowing tears and heaving 
sighs of parting relations, the wailings of lamentation and wo, the 
bloody cut of the keen lash, and the frightful scream that rends the 
very skies, — and all this to gratify ambition, lust, pride, avarice, vanity, 
and other depraved feelings of the human heart. Too long has our 
country been unfortunately lulled to sleep, feeding on the golden 
dreams of superficial poUticians, fanciful poets, and anniversary 
orations. The worst is not generally known. Were all the miseries, 
the horrors of slavery, to burst at once into view, a peal of sevenfold 
thunder could scarce strike greater alarm. We cannot yet believe 
the condition of our country so desperate, as to forbid the judicious 
application of proper remedies." — Address of B. Swain of North 
Carolina, in 1830. 



GOVERNOR RANDOLPH. 

The deplorable error of our ancestors in copying a civil institution 
from savage Africa, has affixed upon their posterity a depressing bur- 
den, which nothing but the extraordinary benefits conferred by our 



MR. BRODNAX — MR. CUSTIS — MR. FAULKNER. 47 

happy climate, could have enabled us to support. We have been far 
outstripped by states, to whom nature has been far less bountiful. It 
is paintul to consider what might have been, under other circum- 
stances, the amount of general wealth in Virginia, or the whole sum 
of comfortable subsistence and happiness possessed by all her inha- 
bitants. — Address to the Legislature of Virginia, in 1820. 



MR. BRODNAX. 

That slavery in Virginia is an evil, and a transcendant evil, it would 
be more than idle for any human being to doubt or deny. It is a 
mildew, which has blighted every region it has touched, from the 
creation of the world. Illustrations from the history of other coun- 
tries and other times might be instructive ; but we have evidence 
nearer at hand, in the short histories of the different states of this 
great confederacy, which are impressive in their admonitions, and 
conclusive in their character. — Speech in the Virginia Legislature, 
1832. 



MR. CUSTIS. 

The prosperity and aggrandizement of a state is to be seen in its 
increase of inhabitants, and consequent progress in industry and 
wealth. Of the vast tide of emigration, which now rushes like a 
cataract to the West, not even a trickling rill wends its way to the 
ancient dominion. Of the multitude of foreigners, who daily seek an 
asylum and home in the empire of liberty, how many turn their steps 
to the region of the slave ? None. No, not one. There is a malaria 
in the atmosphere of those regions, which the new comer shuns, as 
being dciCterious to his views and habits. See the wide spreading 
ruin which the avarice of our ancestral government has produced in 
the South, as witnessed in a sparse population of freemen, deserted 
habitations, and fields without culture. 

Strange to tell, even the wolf, driven back long since by the ap- 
proach of man, now returns, after the lapse of an hundred years, to 
howl over the desolations of slavery. 



MR. FAULKNER. 

i am gratified to perceive that no gentleman has yet risen in this 
hall the avowed advocate of slavery. The day has gone by, when 
such a voice could be listened to with patience, or even forbearance. 
I even regret, sir, that we should find one among us, who enters the 



48 MR. SUMMERS. 

lists as its apologist, except en the ground of uncontrollable necessity. 
If there be one who concurs with the gentleman from Brunswick 
(Mr. Gholson) in the harmless character of this institution, let me 
request him to compare the condition of the slaveholding portion of 
this Commonwealth — barren, desolate, and seared as it were by the 
avenging hand of Heaven, with the descriptions which we have of this 
same country from those, who first broke its virgin soil. To what is 
this change ascribable ? Alone to the withering and blasting efTects 
of slavery. If this does not satisfy him, let me request him to extend 
his travels to the northern states of this Union, and beg him to con- 
trast the happiness and contentment which prevails throughout the 
country — the busy and cheerful sound of industry — the rapid and 
swelling growth of their population — the means and institutions of 
education — their skill and proficiency in the useful arts — their enter- 
prise and public spirit — the monuments of their commercial and 
manufacturing industry ; — and above all, their devoted attachment 
to the government from which they derive their protection, with the 
division, discontent, indolence, and poverty of the southern country. 
To what, sir, is all this ascribable ? To that vice in the organization 
of society, by which one half of its inhabitants are arrayed in interest 
and feeling against the other half — to that unfortunate state of society 
in which freemen regard labor as disgraceful, and slaves shrink from 
it as a burden tyrannically imposed upon them — to that condition of 
things, in which half a million of your population can feel no sympa- 
thy with the society, and in the prosperity of which they are forbidden 
to participate — no attachment to a government at whose hands they 
receive nothing but injustice. 



MR. SUMMERS. 

Sir, the evils of this system cannot be enijmerated. It were un- 
necessary to attempt it. They glare upon us at every step. When 
the owner looks to his wasted estate, he knows and feels them. 
IVhen the statesman examines the condition of his country, and finds 
her moral influence gone, her physical strength diminished, her politi- 
cal power waning, he sees and must confess them. Will gentlemen 
inform us when this subject will become less delicate, when it will be 
attended with fewer difficulties than at present — and at v/hat period 
we shall be better enabled to meet them ? Shall we be more adequate 
to the end proposed, after the resources of the state have been yet 
longer paralyzed by the withering, desolating influence of our present 
system? Sir, every year's delay but augments the difficulties of this 
great business, and weakens our ability to compass it. Like silly 
children, we endeavor to postpone the work, which we know must be 
performed. — Speeches in the Virginia Legislature, 1832. 



HENKY CLAY. 49 



HENRY CLAY. 



As a mere laborer, the slave feels that he toils for his master, and 
not for himself ; that the laws do not recognise his capacity to ac- 
quire and hold property, which depends altogether upon the pleasure 
of his proprietor, and that all the fruits of his exertions are reaped by 
others. He knows that, whether sick or well, in times of scarcity 
or abundance, his master is bound to provide for him by the all- 
powerful influence of self-interest. He is generally, therefore, indif- 
ferent to the adverse or prosperous fortunes of his master, being 
contented if he can escape his displeasure or chastisement, by a care- 
less and slovenly performance of his duties. 

This is the state of the relation between master and slave, pre- 
scribed by the law of its nature, and founded in the reason of things. 
There are undoubtedly many exceptions, in which the slave dedicates 
himself to his master with a zealous and generous devotion, and the 
master to the slave with a parental and affectionate attachment. 
But it is my purpose to speak of the general state of this unfortunate 
relation. 

That labor is best, in which the laborer knows that he will derive 
the profits of his industry, that his employment depends upon his 
diligence, and his reward upon this assiduity. He then has every 
motive to excite him to exertion, and to animate him in perseverance. 
He knows that if he is treated badly, he can exchange his employer 
for one who will better estimate his service ; and that whatever he 
earns is his, to be distributed by himself as he pleases, among his 
wife and children, and friends, or enjoyed by himself. In a word, 
he feels that he is a free agent, with rights, and privileges, and sensi- 
bilities. 

Wherever the option exists to employ, at an equal hire, free or 
slave labor, the former will be decidedly preferred, for the reasons 
already assigned. It is more capable, more diligent, more faithful, 
and in every respect more worthy of confidence. 

It is believed that nowhere in the farming portion of the United 
States would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprietor 
were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the southern 
market, which keeps it up in his own. 

[Speaking of an attempt more than thirty-five years ago, to adopt 
gradual emancipation in Kentucky, Mr. Clay says :] 

We were overpowered by numbers, and submitted to the decision 
of the majority, with the grace which the minority, in a republic, 
should ever yield to such a decision. I have nevertheless never 
ceased, and never shall cease, to regret a decision, the effects of 
which have been, to place us in the rear of our neighbors, who are 
exempt from slavery, in the state of agriculture, the progress of 
manufactures, the advance of improvement, and the general prosperity 
of society. — Address before the Colonization Society^ 

7 



50 JOHN Q. ADAMS. 



JOHN Q. ADAMS. 

Not three days since, Mr. Clayton, of Georgia, called that species 
of population (viz. slaves) the nnachinery of the South. Now that 
machinery had twenty odd representatives* in that hall, — not elected 
by the machinery, but by those who owned it. And if he should go 
back to the history of this government from its foundation, it would 
be easy to prove that its decisions had been affected, in general, by 
less majorities than that. Nay, he might go further, and insist that 
that very representation had ever been, in fact, the ruling power of 
this government. 

The history of the Union has afforded a continual proof that this 
representation of property, which they enjoy, as well in the election 
of President and Vice President of the United States, as upon the 
floor of the House of Representatives, has secured to the slavehold- 
ing states the entire control of the national policy, and, almost without 
exception, the possession of the highest executive office of the 
Union. Always united in the purpose of regulating the affairs of the 
whole Union by the standard of the slaveholding interest, their dis- 
proportionate numbers in the electoral colleges have enabled them, 
in ten out of twelve quadrennial elections, to confer the Chief Magis- 
tracy upon one of their own citizens. Their suffrages at every 
election, without exception, have been almost exclusively confined to 
a candidate of their own caste. Availing themselves of the divisions 
which, from the nature of man, always prevail in communities entirely 
free, they have sought and found auxiliaries in the other quarters of 
the Union, by associating the passions of parties, and the ambition 
of individuals, with their own purposes, to establish and maintain 
throughout the confederated nation the slaveholding policy. The 
office of Vice President, a station of high dignity, but of little other 
than contingent power, had been usually, by their indulgence, con- 
ceded to a citizen of the other section ; but even this political cour- 
tesy was superseded at the election before the last, and both the 
offices of President and Vice President of the United States were, 
by the preponderancy of slaveholding votes, bestowed upon citizens 
of two adjoining and both slaveholding states. At this moment, 
the President of the United States, the President of the Senate, the 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Chief Justice of 
the United States, are all citizens of that favored portion of the united 
republic. The last of these offices, being under the constitution held 
by the tenure of good behaviour, has been honored and dignified by 
the occupation of the present incumbent upwards of thirty years. 
An overruling sense of the high responsibilities under which it is 
held, has effectually guarded him from permitting the sectional slave- 
holding spirit to ascend the tribunal of justice ; and it is not difficult 
to discern, in this inflexible impartiality, the source of the obloquy 

[* There are now twenty-five odd representatives — that is, representatives of 
slaves.] 



NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW DUFF GREEN. 61 

which that same spirit has not been inactive in attempting to excite 
against the Supreme Court of the United States itself: and of the 
insuperable aversion of the votaries of nullification to encounter or 
abide by the decision of that tribunal, the true and legitimate umpire 
of constitutional, controverted law. — Speech in Congress, Feb. 4, 
1833. 



NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 

The great body of the Roman citizens were impoverished. In- 
stead of little farms studding the country with their pleasant aspect, 
and nursing an independent race, there were seen nearly all the 
lands of Italy engrossed by large proprietors, and the plough was in 
the hands of slaves. In the early period of the state, agriculture and 
war had been the labor and the office of freemen ; but the great 
mass of the Roman citizens had now, by the institution of bondmen, 
and its necessary tendency to accumulate all possessions in the hands 
of a few, been excluded from employment ; the palaces of the wealthy 
towered in the landscape in solitary grandeur ; the freemen hid them- 
selves in miserable hovels. Deprived of the dignity of proprietors, 
they could not even hope for occupation ; for the opulent landholder 
preferred rather to make use of his slaves, whom he could not but 
mamtain, and who constituted his family. Excepting a small number, 
of the immeasurably rich, and a feeble and continually decreasing 
class of independent husbandmen, poverty was extreme. 

He (Tiberius Gracchus) found the inhabitants of the Roman state 
divided into three distinct classes. The few wealthy nobles ; the 
many indigent citizens ; and the still more numerous class of slaves. 
Reasoning correctly on the subject, he pjerceived that it was slavery, 
which crowded the poor freemen out of employment, and barred the 
way to his advancement. It was the aim of Gracchus, not so much 
to mend the condition of the slaves, as to lift the brood of idle per- 
sons into dignity ; to give them land, to put the plough into their 
hands, to make them industrious and useful, and to repose on them 
the hberties of the state. He resolved to create a Roman yeomanry; 
instead of planters and slaves, to substitute free laborers : to plant 
liberty firmly in the land ; to perpetuate the Commonwealth, by iden- 
tifying its principles with the culture of the soil. — Art. "Slavery in 
Rome." 



GENERAL DUFF GREEN. 

We are of those who believe the South has nothing to fear from a 
servile war. We do not believe that the abolitionists intend, nor 
could they, if they would, excite the slaves to insurrection. Th« 



62 GOVERNOR RITNER. 

danger of this is remote. We believe that we have most to fear 
from the organized action upon the consciences and fears of slave- 
holders themselves ; from the insinuations of their dangerous heresies 
into our schools, our pulpits, and our domestic circles. It is only 
by alarming the consciences of the weak and feeble, and diffusing 
among our own people a morbid sensibility on the question of slavery, 
that the abolitionists can accomplish their object. Preparatory to 
this, they are now laboring to saturate the non-slaveholding states 
with the belief that slavery is a sin against God ; that the " national 
compact" involves the non-slaveholders in that sin ; and that it is 
their duty to toil and suffer, that our country may be delivered from 
what they term its blackest stain, its foulest reproach, its deadliest 
curse. — Southern Review. 



GOVERNOR RITNER. 

Last, but worst of all, came the base bowing of the knee to the 
dark spirit of slavery. 

For the preservation of this last and most cherished article of our 
national political creed, the sacrifice of which has not yet been com- 
pleted, it is our duty to make all possible effort. 

To ascertain what have been, nay, what are the doctrines of the 
people of this state, on the subject of domestic slavery, reference 
need only be made to the statute book and journals of the legislature. 
They will there be found imprinted in letters of light upon almost 
every page. In 1, Smith's Laws, 493, is found an "act for the 
gradual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania," with a preamble which 
should be printed in letters of gold. This is the first act of the kind 
passed in any part of the Union, and was nobly put forth to the 
world, in the year 178U, in the midst of the struggle for national 
freedom. This just doctrine was, through a long course of years, 
adhered to and perfected, till slavery ceased in our state. And 
finally, in 1827, the following open avowal of the state doctrine, was 
prefaced to the act " to prevent certain abuses of the laws relative to 
fugitives from labor." " The traffic in slaves, now abhorred by all 
the civilized world, ought not in the slightest degree to be tolerated 
in the state of Pennsylvania." — Pamphlet Laws, page 485. 

Not only has Pennsylvania thus expelled the evil from her own 
borders, but she has on all proper occasions, endeavored to guard her 
younger sisters from the pollution. On the 19th of December, 1819, 
the following language was unanimously made use of by the legisla- 
ture, and approved of by the governor, on the question of admitting 
new states into the Union, with the right of holding slaves. " That 
the senators and representatives of this state, in the congress of the 
United States, be, and they are hereby requested to vote against the 
admission of any territory as a state into the Union, unless the fur- 
ther in* eduction of slavery or involuntary servitude, except for the 
punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly con- 



J 



BENJAMIN LUNDY. 63 

victed, shall be prohibited, and all children born within the said terri- 
tory, after its admission into the Union as a state, shall be free, but 
may be held to servicr until the age of twenty-five years." 

The preamble to this resolution, too long to be cited at large, is 
worthy of all consideration at the present juncture. 

On the much discussed question of slavery in the District of 
Columbia, there never has been any thing like hesitation. On the 
23d of January, 1819, the legislature passed a resolution instructmg 
our representatives in congress to advocate the passage of a law for 
its abolition ; and the voice of public opinion, as expressed through 
the press, at meetings, and in petitions, has been unchanging on the 
subject. 

These tenets, then, viz : opposition to slavery at home, which, by 
the blessing of Providence, has been rendered effectual ; opposition 
to the admission into the Union of new slaveholding states ; and 
opposition to slavery in the District of Columbia, the very hearth and 
domestic abode of the national honor — have ever been, and are the 
cherished doctrines of our state. Let us, fellow-citizens, stand by 
and maintain them unshrinkingly and fearlessly. While we admit 
and scrupulously respect the constitutional rights of other states, on 
this momentous subject, let us not, either by fear or interest, be 
driven from aught of that spirit of independence and veneration for 
freedom, which has ever characterized our beloved commonwealth. 

Above all, let us never yield up the right of free discussion of any 
evil which may arise in the land or any part of it ; convinced that the 
moment we do so, the bond of union is broken. For, the union 
being a voluntary compact to continue together for certain specified 
purposes, the instant one portion of it succeeds in imposing terms 
and dictating conditions upon another, not found in the contract, the 
relation between them changes, and that which was union becomes 
subjection. — Message to Pennsylvania Legislature, 1836. 



BENJAMIN LUNDY. 

It is generally admitted, that the WAR IN TEXAS has assumed 
a character which must seriously affect both the interests and the 
honor of this nation. It implicates the conduct of a large number of 
our citizens, and even the policy and measures of the government 
are deeply involved in it. The subject, as now presented to our 
view, is indeed one of vital importance to the people of the United 
States ; and it particularly invites the attention — the most solemn 
and deliberate consideration — of all who profess to be guided by the 
true principles of justice and philanthropy. It is not only to be 
viewed as a matter of interest, at the present day. The great funda- 
mental principles of universal liberty — the perpetuity of our free 
republican institutions — the prosperity, the welfare, and the happiness 
of future generations — are measurably connected with the prospective 
issue of this fierce and bloodv conflict. 



64 BENJAMIN LUNDT. 

But the prime cause, and the real objects of this war, are not dis- 
tinctly understood by a large portion of the honest, disinterested, and 
well-meaning citizens of the Unitod States. Their means of obtain- 
ing correct information upon the subject have been necessarily 
limited ; and many of them have been deceived and misled by the 
misrepresentations of those concerned in it, and especially by hireling 
writers of the newspaper press. They have been induced to believe 
that the inhabitants of Texas were engaged in a legitimate contest 
for the maintenance of the sacred principles of liberty, and the natural, 
inalienable rights of man : — whereas, the motives of its instigators, 
and their chief incentives to action, have been, from the commence- 
ment, of a directly opposite character and tendency. It is suscepti- 
ble of the clearest demonstration, that the immediate cause, and the 
leading object of this contest, originated in a settled design, among 
the slaveholders of this country, (with land speculators and slave- 
traders.) to wrest the large and valuable territory of Texas from the 
Mexican Republic, in order to re-establish the SYSTEM OF 
SLAVERY; to open a vast and profitable SLAVE-MARKET 
therein ; and tdtimately, to annex it to the United States. And fur- 
ther, it is evident — nay, it is very generally acknowledged — that the 
insurrectionists are principally citizens of the United States, who 
have proceeded thitherybr the purpose of revolutionizing the country ; 
and that they are dependant upon this nation, for both the physical 
and pecuniary means, to carry the design into effect. We have a 
still more important view of the subject. The slaveholding interest 
is now paramount in the executive branch of our national government ; 
and its influence operates, indirectly, yet powerfidly, through that 
medium, in favor of this grand scheme of oppression and tyrannical 
usurpation. Whether the national legislature will join hands with 
the executive, and lend its aid to this most unwarrantable, aggressive 
attempt, will depend on the VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, ex- 
pressed in their primary assemblies, by their petitions, and through the 
ballot boxes. 

The land speculations, aforesaid, have extended to most of the cities and villages 
of the United States, the British colonies in America, and the settlements of foreigners 
in all the eastern parts of Mexico. All concerned in them are aware that a change in 
the government of the conntry must take place, if their claims shall ever be legalized. 
The advocates of slavery, in our southern states and elsewhere, want more land 
on this continent suitable for the culture of sugar and cotton : and if Texas, with 
the adjoining portions of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Chiliuahua, and Santa Fe, east of 
the Rio Bravo del Norte, can be wrested from the Mexican government, room will 
be afforded for the redundant slave population in the United States, even to a 
remote period of time. The following may be taken as a fair estimate of the 
dimensions of this extensive region, in square miles, and in English acres. It ia 
calculated from the boundaries of the different departments, as marked in Teinner'a 
Map of Mexico, revised in 1834: 

Texas (proper,) 

Tamauhpas east of Rio Bravo, 

Coahuila, do. 

Chihuahua, do. 

Santa Fe. do. 



165,000 


104,560,000 


13,000 


8,960,000 


7^000 


4,480,000 


9,000 


5,760,000 


107,000 


68,480,000 


301,000 


192,240,000 



BENJAMIN LUNDY. 55 

The breeders of slaves, in those parts of the Unit'^d States where slave labor has 
become unprofitable, and also the traffickers in human flesh, whether American or 
foreign, desire an extended market, which Texas would afford if revolutionized, 
and governed as well as inhabited by those who are in favor of re-establishing the 
system of slavery in that section of country. The northern land speculators most 
cheerfully co-operate with the southern slaveholders in the grand scheme of aggres- 
sion, with the hope of immense gain ; and the slave-merchants play into the hands 
of both, with the same heartless, avaricious feelings and views. The principal 
seat of operations for the first, is New York, — though some active and regular 
agencies are established at New Orleans and Nashville, and minor agencies in 
other places. The second exercise their influence individually, without any partic- 
ular organization ; while the third co-operate with all, as opportunities present 
themselves. They have subsidized presses at command, ready to give extensive 
circulation to whatever they may wish to publish in furtherance of their views. 
And orators, legislators, and persons holding official stations under our Federal 
government, are deeply interested in their operations, and frequently, willing instru- 
ments to promote their cause. 

Such are the motives for action — such the combination of interests — such the 
organization, sources of influence, and foundation of authority, upon which the 
present Texas Instirrection rests. The resident colonists compose but a small frac- 
tion of the party concerned in it. The standard of revolt was raised as soon as it 
was clearly ascertained that slavery could not be perpetuated, nor the illegal specu- 
lations in land continued, under the government oi the Mexican Republic. The 
Mexican authorities were charged with acts of oppression, while the true causes of 
the revolt — the motives and designs of the insurgents — were studiously concealed 
from the public view. Influential slaveholders are contributing money, equipping 
troops, and marching to the scene of conflict. The land speculators arc fitting out 
expeditions from New York and New Orleans, with men, munitions of war, pro- 
visions, &c., to promote the object. The Independence of Texas is declared, and 
the system of slavery, as well as the slave-trade, (with the United States,) is fully 
recognised by the government they have set up. Commissioners are sent from the 
colonies, and agents are appointed here, to make formal application, enlist the 
sympathies of our citizens, and solicit aid in every way that it can be furnished. 
The hireling presses are actively engaged in promoting the success of their efibrts, 
by misrepresenting the character of the Mexicans, issuing inflammatory appeals, 
and urging forward the ignorant, the unsuspecting, the adventurous, and the un- 
principled, to a participation in the struggle. 

Under the erroneous construction of the treaty with Mexico, General Gaines 
was authorized to cross the boundary line with his army ; to march seventy miles 
into the Me,\ican territory ; and to occupy the military post of Nacogdoches, in 
case he shonld judge it expedient in order to guard against Indian depredations ! 
And further ; he was likewise authorized to call upon the governors of several 
of the south-western states for an additional number of troops, should he consider it 
necessary. 

In order to furnish an excuse for the exercise of the authority thus delegated to 
him, many false rumors of Indian depredations and hostile movements, were re- 
ported to the commander of the United States forces, and he did not neglect the 
occasion for pushing to the ve^-y extent of his conditional instructions. (His pro- 
ceedings in this case are of so recent date, that they must be fiiniiliar to every intel- 
hgent reader, and need not be here specified.) He even v/ent so far, that the 
executive became alarmed, lest the " neutrality" of our government shonld be violated! 
— and his requisitions upon the governors of Tennessee and Kentucky were coun- 
termanded. Yet he is still permitted to keep an imposing force stationed in the 
Mexican territory ; and it is understood that he is in regular correspondence with 
the chiefs of the insurgent armies; also, that his men are " deserting," and joining 
them in great numbers. 

In stating these facts, it may be well to accompany them with the proof — and 
here it is. How well the plan is devised ! — How completely the system works ! — 
What undeniable evidence, too, of a strict " neutrality''^ on our part ! i 

From the Pen;;acola Gazette. 
" About the middle of last month. General Gaines sent nn officer of the United 



66 BENJAMIN LUNDV. 

States army into Texas to reclaim some deserters. He found them already enlisted 
in the Texian service to the number of two hundred. They still wore the uniform 
of our army, but refused, of course, to return. The commander of the Texian forces 
was applied to, to enforce their return ; but his only reply was. that the soldiers 
might go, but he had no authority to send them back. This is a new view of our 
Texian relations." 

The insurrectionists are thus indirectly encouraged, and assisted, by our govern- 
ment. And the hope is entertained, by those concerned, that the efforts of the 
Mexicans may be thus paralyzed, and the possession of the territory retained by 
the revolutionists, until the next meeting of the congress of the United States, when 
the independence of the Texian Republic may be Ibrmally acknowledged, and soon 
thereafter, admitted as an "Independent State," into this confederacy. This the 
"Combination" is fully determined upon. It is the ultimatum of their grand design. 
I repeat, that its members have a majority in the councils of the nation; and as the 
sentiments of the executive head coincides with theirs, tlie government is completely 
under their controlling influence; and tlieir object will certainly be accomplished, 
UNLESS THE PEOPLE OF OUR FREE STATES AROUSE FROM 
THEIR APATHY, and by an open, decided, general expression of their senti- 
ments, induce their senators and representatives in congress to oppose the measure. 

The institution of an established religion is a grand defect in the organization of 
the Mexican Republic. But this is nothing more tlian what may be said of the 
English, and many other European, as well as American governments. The 
colonists well knew that none but the established religion was ever tolerated, corir 
stitutionally, by the Mexican government, when they took the oath of allegiance to 
it. Many of tliern formally embraced the predominant faith, were baptized, re- 
newed their marriage contracts, &.C., according to the rites of the Catholic church. 
But a disposition very generally prevailed among the Mexican people, to tolerate 
the public exercise of all other professions of the Christian religion ; both Alethodists 
and Presbyterians held their meetings, openly, in tlie colonies, without the least 
degree of molestation from the government or individuals. Even laws were enacted 
by Mexicans, providing for their protection in the enjoyment of their religious 
privileges. Had they sliown a disposition to unite with the native inhabitants in 
supporting the laws of the country, there can be no doubt that these privileges 
would eventually have been guarantied them by permanent constitutional regula- 
tions. 

The following decrees and ordinances are translated from an official compilation, 
published by authority of the Mexican government, embracing all the public acts of 
said government, from the period of its organization to the year 1830. 

Decree or jult 13, 1824. 

Prohibition of the Commerce and Traffic in Slaves. 

The Sovereign General Constituent Congress of the United Mexican States has 
held it right to decree the following : 

1. The commerce and traffic in slaves, proceeding from whatever power, and 
under whatever flag, is for ever prohibited, within the territories of the United 
Mexican States. 

2. The slaves, who may be introduced contrary to the tenor of the preceding 
article, shall remain free in consequence of treading the Mexican soil. 

3. Every vessel, whether national or foreign, in which slaves may be transported 
and introduced into the Mexican territories, shall be confiscated with the rest of its 
cargo — and the owner, purchaser, captain, master, and pilot, shall suffer the punish- 
ment often years' confinement. 

4. This law will take effect from the date of its publication ; however, as to the 
punishments nrcstribed in the preceding article, tlicy shall not take effect till six 
months after, towards the planters, who, in virtue of the law of the 14th October 
last, relating to the colonization of the Isthmus of Guazacoalco, may disembark 
slaves for the purpose of introducing them into the Mexican territory. 

The Constitution of Coahuila and Texas, promulgated on the llth of March, 
1827, also contains this important article : 
"13. In this state no person shall be born a slave after this Constitution is pub- 



BENJAMIN LUNDY. 57 

lished in the capital of cacli district, and six months thereafter, neither will the 
introduction of slaves be permitted under any pretext." 
(Translated from page 149, Vol. 5, Mexican laws.] 

Decree of President Guerrero. 

Abolition of Slavery. 

The President of the United Mexican States, to the inhabitants of the Republic — 
Be it known: That in the year 1829, being desirous of signalizing the anniver- 
sary of our Independence by an act of national Justice and Beneficence, which 
may contribute to the strength and support of such inestimable welfare, as to secure 
more and more the public tranquillity, and reinstate an unfortunate portion of our 
inhabitants in the sacred rights granted them by nature, and may be protected by 
the nation, under wise and just laws, according to the provision in article 30 of the 
Constitutive act ; availing myself of the extraordinary faculties granted me, 1 have 
thought proper to decree : 

1. That slavery be exterminated in the republic. 

2. Consequently those are free, who, up to this day, have been looked upon as 
slaves. 

3. Whenever the circumstances of the pubUc treasury will allow it, the owners 
of slaves shall be indemnified, in the manner which the laws shall provide. 

Mexico, 15th Sept. 1829, A. D. 

JOSE MARIA de BOCANEGRA. 

[Translation of part of the law of April 6th, 1830, prohibiting the migration of 
citizens of the United States to Texas.] 

Art. 9. On the northern frontier, the entrance of foreigners shall be prohibited, 
under all pretexts whatever, imless they be furnished with passports, signed by the 
agents of the republic, at the places whence they proceed. 

Art. 10. There shall be no variation with regard to the colonies already estab- 
lished, nor with regard to the slaves that may be in them; but the general 
government, or the particular state government, shall take care, under the strictest 
responsibility, that the colonization laws be obeyed, and that no more slaves be 
introduced. 

Colonization Laws of Coahuila and Texas. 

Art. 35. The new settlers, in regard to the introduction of slaves, shall be sxibjecl 
to laios which now exist, and which shall hereafter be made on the subject. 

Art. 36. The servants and laborers which, in future, foreign colonists shall intro- 
duce, shall not, byfmxe of any contract whatever, remain boiind to their service a longer 
space of time than ten years. 

Given in the city of Leona Vicario, 28th April, 1832. 

JOSE JESUS GRANDE, President 

In the course of my observations, I have several times asserted, that it was the 
intention of the insurrectionists to establish and perpetuate the system of slavery, 
by " CmstitutirniaV provision. In proof of this, I now quote several paragraphs 
from the "Constitution" which they lately adopted. This extract is taken from 
that part under the head of " General Provisions," and embraces all that relates to 
slavery. 

Sec. 8. All persons who shall leave the country for the purpose of evading a par- 
ticipation in the present struggle, or shall refuse to participate in it, or shall give aid 
or assistance to the present enemy, shall forfeit all rights to citizenship, and such 
lands as they may hold, in the republic. 

Sec. 9. AH persons of color, who were slaves for life previous to their emigration 
to Texas, and M'ho are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servi- 
tude, provided the said slave shall be the bona fide property of the person so holding 
said slave as aforesaid. Congress shall pass no laics to prohibit emigrants from the 
United States of Jlmtrica from bringing their slaves into the republic with them, and 
holding them by the same tenure by which such slaves were held in the United 
States; nor shall Congress have the poioer to emancipate sloven; nor shall any slave- 
holder be alloiced to emancipate his or her slave or slaves, without the co7isent of Con- 

8 



68 BENJAMIN LUNDY. 

gress, unless he or she shall send his or her slave or slaves without the limits of the" 
repubUc. No free person of African descent, either in whole or in part, shall be 
be permitted to reside permanently in the republic, without the consent of Congress ; 
and the importation or admission of Africans or negroes into this republic, except- 
ing from the United States of America, is for ever prohibited, and declared to be 
piracy. 

Sec. 10. All persons, {Africans, and the descendants of Africans, and Indians 
excepted,) who were residing in Texas on the day of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, [a great portion of the native Mexican citizens are, of course, excluded,] shall 
be considered citizens of the republic, and entitled to all the privileges of such. All 
citizens now living in Texas, who have not received their portion of land, in like 
manner as colonists, shall be entitled to their land in the following proportion and 
manner: Every head of a family shall be entitled to one league and "labor" of 
land, and every single man of the age of seventeen and upwards, shall be entitled 
to the third part of one league of land. 

The adoption of a constitution, with such provisions as are here quoted, may be 
termed the crowning act — the finishing stroke of this monstrous scheme of op- 
pression, so far as the expressed will of those concerned in it can be manifested by 
conventional regulation. When we look back to the commencement of their 
operations, and trace their movements, step by step, bearing in mind their open 
declarations upon various occasions, what man of reason and common sense can, 
for one moment, doubt that the re-establishment of slavery has been their principal 
object, their settled determination, from the beginning ? 

1 have unfolded to the view of the attentive reader what I hiow to be the motives 
and intentions of the instigators. I have, by this means, endeavored to undeceive 
the honest portion of the great American community, who have not had sufficient 
opportunities to penetrate the veil of their masked designs, and have been imposed 
upon by their false pretensions. The very acts of the insurgents — even the whole 
systematic course of their proceedings — prove clearly the correctness of my charges 
and expositions. It will be seen that, instead of a desire to establish and perpetuate 
the liberal institutions of freedom and equality of rights, they have taken up arms 
against the Mexican government from motives of personal aggrandizement, avari- 
cious adventure, and unlimited, enduring oppression. The alarming fact is also 
clearly and fully substantiated, that the influence of the SLAVEHOLDING 
PARTY in the United States is now so completely in the ascendant, and so tho- 
roughly sways the deliberations and proceedings of our federal government, that it 
makes it the passive, if not the active, instrument, in extending and permanently 
establishing that horrible system of oppression, even in regions where it had been 
destroyed by the power of moral virtue and republican principle. 

The period has indeed arrived— THE CRISIS IS AT HAND— when the wise, 
the virtuous, the patriotic, the philanthropic of tliis nation, must examine, and reflect, 
and deeply ponder the momentous subject under consideration. Already we see 
the newspaper press in some of the free states, openly advocating the system of 
slavery, with all its outrages and abominations. Individuals occupying influential 
stations in the community at large, also countenance and encourage it, and even 
instigate the vile rabble to oppose, maltreat, and trample on the necks of those who 
dare to plead the cause of the oppressed. At the ensuing session of our national 
congress, the great battle is to be fought, that must decide the question now at issue, 
and perhaps even se(d the fate of this republic. The senators and representatives of 
the people will then be called on to sanction the independence of Texas, and also, 
to provide for its admission, as a SLAVEHOLDING STATE, into this Union. 
These measures will positively be proposed, in case the Mexican government fails 
to suppress the insurrection very soon, and to recover the ai-tiial possession of the 
territory. A few of our most eminent statesmen will resist the proposition with 
energy and zeal ; but unless the PUBLIC VOICE be raised against (he unhal- 
lowed proceeding, and the sentiments of the people be most unequivocally expressed 
in the loudest tones of disapprobation, they will be unable to withstand the influence 
and power of their antagonists. Arouse, then ! and let your voice be heard through 
your primary assemblies, your legislative halls, and the columns of the periodical 
press, in every section of your country! 

Citizens of the United States! — Sons of the Pilgrims, and disciples of Wesley 



JOHN Q. ADAMS. 59 

and Penn ! — Coadjutors and pupils of Wasliington, Jefferson, and Franklin ! — 
Advocates of freedom and the sacred "rights of man /" — Will you longer shut your 
eyes, and slumber in apathy, while the demon of oppression is thus stalking over 
the plains consecrated to the genius of liberty, and fertihzed by the blood of her 
numerous martyrs ? — Will you permit the authors of this gigantic project of national 
aggression, interminable slavery, and Heaven-daring injustice, to perfect their 
diabolical schemes through your supinencss, or with the sanction of your acqui- 
escence ? If they succeed in the accomplishment of their object, where will be your 
guarantee for the liberty wliich you, yourselves enjoy? When the advocates of 
slavery shall obtain the balance of power in this confederation ; when they shall 
have corrupted a few more of the aspirants to office among you, and opened an 
illimitable field for the operations of your heartless land-jobbers and slave- merchants, 
(to secure their influence m effecting tlie unholy purposes of their ambition,) how 
long will you be able to resist the encroachments of their tyrannical influence, or 
prevent them from usurping and exercising authority over you ? ARISE IN THE 
MAJESTY OP MORAL POWER, and place the seal of condemnation upon 
this flagrant violation of national laws, of human rights, and the eternal, immutable 
principles of justice. — National Enquirer of Philadelphia. 



JOHN Q. ADAMS. 

Sir, in the authority given to congress by the constitution of the United States to 
declare war, all the powers incidental to war are, by necessary implication, conferred 
upon the government of the United States. Now, the powers incidental to loar, are 
derived, not from internal municipal sources, but from the laws and usages of 
nations. In your relations with the Indian tribes, you never declare war, though 
you do make and break treaties with them, whenever either to make or to break 
treaties with them, happens to suit the purposes of the President and a majority of 
both houses of congress. For, in tliis matter, you have set aside the judiciary de- 
partment of the government as effectually as if there were none such in the con- 
stitution. 

There are, then, Mr. Chairman, in the authority of congress and of the Executive, 
two classes of powers, altogether different in their nature, and often incompatible 
with each other ; the war power and the peace power. The peace power is limited 
by regulations, and restricted by provisions, prescribed within the constitution itself. 
The war power is hmited only by the laws and usages of nations. The power is 
tremendous: 't is strictly constitutional, but it breaks down every barrier so anx- 
iously erected for the protection of liberty, of property, and of life. This, sir, is the 
power which authorizes you to pass the resolution now before you, and, ia my 
opinion, there is no other. 

And it was upon that same principle, tiiat I voted against the resolution reported 
by the slavery committee, " that congress possess no constitutional authority to 
interfere, in any way, with the institution of slavery in any of the states of this con- 
federacy," to which resolution most of those with whom 1 usuall.y concur, and even 
my own colleagues in this House, gave their assent. I do not admit that there is, 
even among the peace powers of congress, no such authority ; but in war there are 
many ways by which congress not only have the authority, but are bound to inter- 
fere with the institution of slavery in the states. The existing law prohibiting the 
importation of slaves into the United States from foreign countries, is itself an inter- 
ference with the institution of slavery in the spates. It was so considered by the 
founders of the constitution of the United States, in %vliich it was stipulated that 
congress should not interfere, in that way, with the institution, prior to 1808. 

During the late war with Great Britain, ^he military and naval commanders of 
that nation, issued proclamations inviting the slaves to repair to their standards, 
with promises of freedom and of settlement in some of the British colonial establish- 
ments. This, surely, was an interference with the institution of slavery in the 
states. By tiie treaty of peace. Great Britain stipulated to evacuate all the forts and 
places in the United States, without carrying away any slaves. If the government 
of the United States had no authority to interfere, in any way, with the institution 



60 JOHN Q,. ADAMS. 

of slavery in the states, they would not have had the authority to require this stipu- 
lation. It is well known that this engagement was not fulfilled by the British naval 
and niiUtary commanders ; that, on the contrary, they did carry away all the slaves 
whom they had induced to join them, and that the British government inflexibly 
refused to restore any of them to their masters ; that a claim of indemnity was con- 
sequently instituted in behalf of the owners of the slaves, and was successfully 
maintained. All that series of transactions was an interference by congress with 
the institution of slavery in the states in one way — in the way of protection and 
support. It was by the institution of slavery alone, that the restitution of slaves 
enticed by proclamations into the British service could be claimed as property. But 
for the institution of slavery, the British commanders could neither have allured 
them to their standard, nor restored them otherwise than as liberated prisoners of 
war. But for the institution of slavery, there could have been no stipulation that 
they should not be carried away as property, nor any claim of indemnity for the 
violation of that engagement. 

But the war power of congress over the institution of slavery in the states is yet 
far more extensive. Suppose the case of a servile war, complicated, as to some 
extent it is even now, with an Indian war ; suppose congress were called to raise 
armies ; to supply money from the whole Union to suppress a servile insurrection : 
would they have no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery? The issue 
of a servile war may be disastrous. By war, the slave may emancipate himself; it 
may become necessary for the master to recognise his emancipation, by a treaty of 
peace ; can it, for an instant, be pretended that congress, in such a contingency, 
would have no authority to interfere with the institution of slavery, in any way, m 
the states ? Why, it would be equivalent to saying, that congress have no consti- 
tutional authority to make peace. 

I suppose a more portentous case, certainly within the bounds of possibility. — I 
would to God I could say not within the bounds of piobaljility. You have been, 
if you are not now, at the very point of a war with Mexico — a war, I am sorry to 
say, so far as public rumor is credited, stimulated by provocations on our part from 
the very commencement of this Administration down to the recent authority given 
to General Gaines to invade the Mexican territory. It is said, that one of the 
earliest acts of this Administration, was a proposal made at a time when there was 
already much ill-humor in Mexico against the United States, that she should cede 
to the United States a very large portion of her territory— large enough to constitute 
nine states equal in extent to Kentucky. It must be confessed, that, a device better 
calculated to produce jealousy, suspicion, ill-will, and hatred, could not have been 
contrived. It is further affirmed, that this overture, offensive in itself, was made 
precisely at the time when a swarm of colonists from these United States were cov- 
ering the Mexican border with land-jobbing, and with slaves, introduced in defiance 
of the Mexican laws, by which slavery had been abolished throughout that republic. 
The war now raging in Texas is a Mexican civil war, and a war for the re-esta- 
blishment of slavery where it was abolished. It is not a servile war, but a war 
between slavery and emancipation, and every possible effort has been made to 
drive us into the war, on the side of slavery. 

Sir, far be it from me to depreciate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon race ; although 
there have been times when they bowed their necks and submitted to the law of 
conquest, beneath the ascendancy of the Norman race. But, sir, it has struck me 
as no inconsiderable evidence of the spirit which is spurring us into this war of 
aggression, of conquest, and of slave-making, that all the fires of ancient, hereditary 
national hatred are to be kinJlcd, to familianze us with the ferocious spirit of rejoic- 
ing at the massacre of prisoneu in cold blood. Sir, is there not yet hatred enough, 
between the races which compost your southern population, and the population of 
Mexico, their next neighbor, but \ou must go back eisht hundred or a thousand 
years, and to another hemisphere,"^ for the fountains of bitterness between you and 
them? What is the temper of feeling between the component parts of your own 
southern population, between your Aivglo-Saxon, Norman-French, and Moorish- 
Spanish inhabitants of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri ? between 
them all and the Indian savage, the original possessor of the land from which you 
are scourging him already ba>k to theYoot of the Rocky Mountains ? What be- 
tween them all and the American negro, of African origin, whom they are holding 
in cruel bondage? Are these elements of harmony, concord, and patriotism between 



'^. 



JOHN Q. ADAMS. 61 

the component parts of a nation starting upon a crusade of conquest? And what 
are the feehngs of all this motley compound equally heterogeneous of the Mexican 
population ? Do not you, an Anglo-Saxon, slaveholding exterminator of Indians, 
from the bottom of your soul, hate the Mexican-Spaniard-Indian emancipator of 
slaves, and abohsher of slavery ? And do you think, that your hatred is not with 
equcd cordiality returned ? Go to the city of Mexico, ask any one of your fellow- 
citizens who have been there for the last three or four years, whether they scarcely 
dare show their faces, as Anglo-Americans, in the streets. Be assured, sir, that, 
however heartily you detest tlie Mexican, his bosom burns w'ith an equally deep- 
seated detestation of you. 

And this is the nation with which, at the instigation of your Executive Govern- 
ment, you are now rusliing into war — into a war of conquest ; commenced by 
aggression on your part, and for the re-establishment of slavery, where it has been 
abohshed, throughout the Mexican repubhc. For your war will be with Mexico — 
with a republic of twenty-four states, and a population of eight or nine millions of 
souls. It seems to be considered that this victory over twelve hundred men, with 
the capture of their commander, the President of the Mexican republic, has already 
achieved the conquest of the whole republic. That it riray have achieved the 
independence of Texas, is not impossible. But Texas is to the Mexican republic 
not more nor so much as the state of Michigan is to yours. That state of Michi- 
gan, the people of wliich are in vain claiming of you the performance of that sacred 
promise you made them, of admitting her as a state into the Union ; that state of 
Michigan, which has greater grievances and heavier wrongs to allege against you 
for a declaration of her independence, if she were disposed to declare it, than the 
people of Texas have for breaking off their union with the repubhc of Mexico. 

And again I ask, what will be your cause in such a war? Aggression, conquest, 
and the re-establishment of slavery, where it has been abolished. In that war, sir, 
the banners of freedom will be the banners of Mexico; and your banners, I blush 
to speak the word, will be the banners of slavery. 

Sir, in considering these United States and the Mexican States as mere masses 
of power coming to collision against each other, I cannot doubt that Mexico will be 
the greatest sufferer by the shock. The conquest of all Mexico would seem to be 
no improbable result of the conflict, especially if the war should extend no furtlier 
than to the two mighty combatants. But w'.ll it be so confined ? Mexico is clearly 
the weakest of the two powers, but she is not the least prepared for action. She 
has the more recent experience of war. She has the greatest number of veteran 
warriors ; and although her highest chief has just suffered a fatal and ignominious 
defeat, yet that has happened often before to leaders of armies too confident of 
success and contemptuous of their enemy. — Even now, Mexico is better prepared 
for a war of invasion upon her. There may be found a successor to Santa Anna, 
inflamed with the desire, not only of avenging her disaster, but what he and his 
nation will consider your perfidious hostiPity. The national spirit may go with him. 
He may not only turn the tables upon the Texian conquerors ; but drive them for 
refuge within your borders, and pursue them into the heart of your own territories. 
Are you in a condition to resist liim ? Is the success of your whole army, and all 
your veteran generals, and all your militia-calls, and all your mutinous volunteers 
against a miserable band of five or six hundred invisible Seminole Indians, in your 
late campaign, an earnest of the energy and vigor with which you are ready to carry 
on that, far otherwise formidable and complicated war? — complicated, did I say? 
And how complicated ? Your Seminole war is already spreading to the Creeks, and, 
in their march of desolation, they sweep along with them your negro slaves, and 
put arms into their hands to make common cause with them against you, and how 
far will it spread, sir, should a Mexican invader, with the torch of liberty in his 
hand, and the standard of freedom floating over his head, proclaiming emancipation 
to the slave, and revenge to the native Indian, as he goes, invade your soil ? What 
will be the condition of your states of Louisiana, of Mississippi, of Alabama, of 
Arkansas, of Missouri, and of Georgia ? Where will be your negroes ! Where 
will be that combined and concentrated mass of Indian tribes, whom, by an incon- 
siderate policy, you have expelled from their widely distant habitations, to embody 
them within a small compass on the very borders of Mexico, as if on purpose to give 
that country a nation of natural allies in their hostilities against you? Sir, you have 
a Mexican, an Indian, and a negro war upon your hands, and you are plunging 



6S JOHN Q. ADAMS. 

yourself into it blindfold ; you are talking about acknowledging the independence of 
the republic of Texas, and you are thirsting to annex Texas, ay, Coahuila, and Ta- 
maulipas, and Santa Fe, from the source to the mouth of the Rio Bravo, to your 
already over-distended dominions. Five hundred thousand square miles of the terri- 
tory of Mexico would not even now quench your burning thirst for aggrandizement 

But will your foreign war for this be with Mexico alone ? No, sir. As the weaker 
party, Mexico, when the contest shall have once begun, will look abroad, as well as 
among your negroes, and your Indians, for assistance. Neither Great Britain nor 
France will suffer you to make such a conquest from Mexico; no, nor even to 
annex the independent state of Texas to your confederation, without their interpo- 
sition. You will have an Anglo-Saxon intertwined with a Mexican war to wage. 
Great Britain may have no serious objection to the independence of Texas, and may 
be willing enough to take her under her protection, as a barrier both against Mexico 
and against you. But, as aggrandizement to you she will not readily suffer it ; and, 
above all, she will not suffer you to acquire it by conquest and the re-esiablishment 
of slavery. Urged on by the irresistible, overwhelming torrent of public opinion, 
Great Britain has recently, at a cost of one hundred millions of dollars, which her 
people have joyfully paid, abolished slavery throughout all her colonies in the West 
Indies. After setting such an example, s!ie will not — it is impossible that she should 
— stand by and witness a war, for the re-establishment of slavery ; where it had 
been for years abolished, and situated thus in the immediate neighborhood of her 
islands. She will tell you, that if you must have Texas as a member of your confed- 
eracy, it must be without the trammels of slavery, and if you will wage a war to 
handcuff and fetter your fellow-man, she will wage the war against you to break 
his chains. Sir, what a figure, in the eyes of mankind, would you make, in deadly 
conflict with Great Britain : she fighting the battles of emancipation, and you the 
battles of slavery ; she the benefactress, and you the oppressor, of human kind ! In 
such a war, the enthusiasm of emancipation, too, would unite vast numbers of her 
people in aid of the national rivalry, and all her natural jealousy against our aggran- 
dizement. No war was ever so popular in England, as that war would be against 
slavery, the slave-trade, and the Anglo-Saxon descendant from her own loins. 

As to the annexation of Texas to your confederation, for what do you want it? 
Are you not large and unwieldy enough already ? Do not two millions of square 
miles cover surface enough for tiie insafiate rapacity of your land-jobbers ? I hope 
there are none of them within the sound of my voice. Have you not Indians 
enough to expel from the land of their fathers' sepulchres, and to exterminate ? 
What, in a prudential and military point of view, would be the addition of Texas 
to your domain ? It would be weakness, and not power. Is your southern and 
southwestern frontier not sufficiently extensive ? not sufficiently feeble ? not suf- 
ficiently defenceless? Why are yon adding regiment after regiment of dragoons 
to your standing army ? Why are you struggling, by direction and by indirection, 
to raise per saltum that army from less than six to more than twenty thousand men ? 
Your commanding general, now returning from his excursion to Florida, openly 
recommends the increase of your army to that number. Sir, the extension of your 
seacoast frontier from the Sabine to the Rio Bravo would add to your weakness 
.enfold ; for it is only weakness with reference to Mexico. It would then be 
.veakness with reference to Great Britain, to France, even perhaps to Russia, to 
every naval European power, which might make a quarrel with us for the sake of 
settling a colony ; but above all, to Great Britain. She, by her naval power, and 
by her American colonies, holds the keys of the Gulf of Mexico. What would be 
the condition of your frontier from the mouth of the Mississippi to the mouth of the 
Rio del Norte, in the event of a war with Great Britain. Sir, the reasons of Mr. 
Monroe for accepting the Sabine as the boundary were three. First, he had no 
confidence in the strength of our claim as far as the Rio Bravo ; secondly, he thought 
it would make our Union so heavy that it would break into fragments by its own 
weight; thirdly, he thonsht it would protrude a long line of seacoast, which, in our 
first war with Great Britain, she might take into her own possession, and which 
we should be able neither to defend nor recover. At that time, there was no ques- 
tion of slavery or of abolition involved in the controversy. The country belonged 
to Spain ; it was a wilderness, and slavery was the established law of tlie land. 
There was then no project for carving out nine slave states, to hold eighteen seats in 
the other wing of this capitol, in the triangle between the mouths and the sources of 



JOHN Q. ADAMS. 63 

the Mississippi and Bravo rivers. But what was our claim ? Why it was that 
La Salle, having discovered the mouth of the Mississippi, and France having made 
a settlement at New Orleans, France had a right to one half the seacoast from the 
mouth of the Mississippi to the next Spanish settlement, which was Vera Cruz. 
The mouth of the Rio Bravo was about half way from the Balize to Vera Cruz; 
and so as grantees, from France of Louisiana, we claimed the Rio del Norte, 
though the Spanish settlement of Santa Fe was at the head of that river. France, 
from whom we had received Louisiana, utterly disclaimed ever having even raised 
such a pretension. Still we made the best of the claim that we could, and finally 
yielded it for the Floridas, and for the line of the forty-second degree of latitude 
from the source of the Arkansas river to the South Sea. Si'.ch was our claim ; and 
you may judge how much confidence Mr, Monroe could have in its validity. The 
great object and desire of the country then was to obtain the Floridas. It was 
General Jackson's desire; and in that conference with me to vviiich I have hereto- 
fore alluded, and which it is said he does not recollect, he said to ine that so long 
as the Florida rivers were not in our possession, there could be no safety for our 
whole southern country. 

But, sir, suppose you should annex Texas to these United States ; another year 
w^ould not pass before you would have to engage in a war for the conquest of the 
island of Cuba. What is now the condition of the island ? — Still under the nominal 
protection of Spain. And what is the condition of Spain herself? Consuming 
her own vitals in a civil war for the succession of the crown. Do you expect, 
that whatever may be the issue of that war, she can retain even the nominal 
possession of Cuba ? After having lost all her continental colonies in North and 
South America, Cuba will stand in need of more efficient protection ; and above 
all, the protection of a naval power. Suppose that naval power should be Great 
Britain. There is Cuba at your very door ; and if you spread yourself along a 
naked coast, from the Sabine to the Rio Bravo, what will be your relative position 
towards Great Britain, with not only Jamaica, but Cuba, and Porto Rico in her 
hands, and abolition for the motto to her union cross of St. George and Sl Andrew? 

If by the utter imbecility of the Mexican confederacy, this revolt of Texas shoald 
lead immediately to its separation from that republic, and its annexation to the 
United States, I believe it impossible that Great Britain should look on, while this 
operation is performing, with indifl^erence. She will see that it must shake her own 
whole colonial power on this continent, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Cairib- 
bean seas, like an earthquake ; she will see, too, that it endangers her own aboliiion 
of slavery in her own colonies. A war for the restoration of slavery, where it has 
been abolished, if successful in Texas, must extend over all jVIexico ; and the 
example will threaten her with imminent danger of a war of colors in her own 
islands. She will take possession of Cuba and of Porto Rico, by cession from 
Spain, or by the batteries from her wooden walls ; and if you ask her by what 
authority she has done it, she will ask you, in return, by what authority you have 
extended your seacoast from the Sabine to the Rio Bravo. She will ask you a 
question more perplexing, namely — by what authority you, witli freedom, indepen- 
dence, and democracy upon your lips, are waging a war of extermination to forge 
new manacles and fetters, instead of those which are falling from the hands and 
feet of man. She will carry emancipation and abolition with her in every fold of 
her flag ; while your stars, as they increase in numbers, will be overcast vnth the 
murky vapors of oppression, and the only portion of your banners visible to the eye, 
will be the blood-stained stripes of the task master ! 

Mr. Chairman, are you ready for all these wars? A Mexican war? a war with 
Great Britain, if not with France? a general Indian war? a servile war? and as 
an inevitable consequence of them all, a civil war ? For it must ultimately termin- 
ate in a war of colors as well as of races. And do you imagine thjit while with 
your eyes open you are wilfully kindling, and then closing your eyes and bHndly 
rushing into them; do you imagine that vvliile, in the very nature of things, your 
own southern and southwestern states must be the Flanders of these compHcated 
wars, the battle-field upon which the last great conflict must be fought between 
slavery and emancipation ; do you imagine that your congress will have no consti- 
tutional authority to interfere with the institution of slavery, in any way, in the states 
of this confederacy? Sir, they must and will interfere with it — perhaps to sustain 
it by war; perhaps to abohsh it by treaties of peace; and they will not only 



64 JOHN Q,. ADAMS. 

possess tlie constitutional power so to interfere, but they will be bound in duty to 
do it by the express provisions of the constitution itself. From the instant that 
your slavelioldins; states become the theatre of war, civil, servile, or foreign, from 
that instant the war powers of congress extend to interference with the institution 
of slaverv in eveiy way by which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indem- 
nity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of the state burdened with slavery 
to a foreign power. 

Sir, it is by virtue of this same war power, as now brought into exercise by this 
Indian war in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, that I vote for the resolution before 
the committee. B3' virtue of tiiis, I have already voted in the course of this session 
to increase your standing army by a second regiment of dragoons, to authorize 
your President to accept the services often thousand volunteers, and to appropriate 
millions of the public money to suppress these Indian hostilities — all for the common 
defence, all for the general welfare. And if, on this occasion, I have been compelled 
to avail myself of the opportunity to assign my reasons for voting against the tirst 
resolution reported by the slavery committee, it is because it was the pleasure of 
the majority of the House this morning to refuse me the permission to assign my 
reasons for my vote, when the question was put upon those resolutions themselves. 

Sir, it is a melancholy contemplation to me, and raises tearful forebodings in my 
mind, when I consider the manner in which that report and those resolutions have 
been disposed of by the House. I have twice asked permission of this House to 
offer two resolutions calling for information from the President upon subjects of 
infinite importance to this question of slavery, to our relations with Mexico, and to 
the peace of the country. When I last made the attempt, a majority of the House 
voted by yeas and nays to suspend the rules to enable me to offer one of the two 
resolutions — but the majority not amounting to two-thirds, my resolution has not 
yet obtained from the House the favor of being considered. Had it been the 
pleasure of the House to indulge the call, or to allow me the privilege of assigning 
my reasons for my vote on the resolution this morning, the remarks that 1 have 
now made might have been deemed more appropriate to those topics of discussion, 
than to the question more immediately now before the committee. They are re- 
flections, however, which I deem it not less indispensable to make, than they are 
painful to be made — extorted from me by a condition of public affairs unexampled 
in the history of this country. Heretofore, calls upon the executive department for 
information, such as that which I have proposed to make, were considered as 
among the rights of the members of this House, which it was scarcely deemed 
decent to resist. A previous question, smothering all discussion upon resolutions 
reported by a committee, affecting the vital principles of the Constitution, moved 
by one of the members who reported the resolutions, and sust:iined by the members 
of that committee itself, is an occurrence which never before happened in the annals 
of this government. 

The adoption of those resolutions of the House had not even been moved. Upon 
the mere question whether an extra number of the reports of the committee should 
be printed, a member moves the recommitment of the report, with instructions to 
report a new resolution. On this motion the previous question is moved, and the 
Speaker declares that the main question is not on the motion to recommit, not on 
the motion to print an extra number of copies of the report, but upon the adoption 
of three resolutions, reported, but never even moved in the House. If this is to be 
the sample of our fut<n-e legislation, it is time to awake from the delusion, that free- 
dom of speech is among the rights of the members of the minority of this House. 

Little reason have the inhabitants of CTeorgia and of Alabama to complain that 
the government of the United States has been remiss or neglectful in protecting 
them from Indian hostilities ; the fact is directly the reverse. The people of Ala- 
bama and Georgia are now suffering the recoil of their own unlawful weapons. 
Georgia, sir, Georgia, by trampling upon the faith of our national treaties with the 
Indian tribes, and by subjecting them to her state laws, first set the example of 
that policy which is now in the process of consummation by this Indian war. In 
setting this example, she bade defiance to the authority of the government of the 
nation ; she nullified your laws ; she set at naught your executive guardians of the 
common Constitution of the land. To what extent she carried this policy, the 
dungeons of her prisons and the records of the Supreme Judicial Court of the 
United States can tell. To those prisons she committed inoffensive, innocent, pious 



JOHN q,. ADAMS. 66 . 

ministers of the gospel of truth, for carrying the light, the comforts, and the conso- 
lations of that gospel to the hearts and minds of these unhappy Indians. A solemn 
decision of the Supreme Court of the United States pronounced that act a violation 
of your treaties and of your laws. Georgia defied that decision ; your executive gov- 
ernment never carried it into execution ; the iinprison<^d missionaries of the gospel 
were compelled to purchase their ransom fiom perpetual captivity, by sacrificing 
their rights as freemen to the meekness of their principles as Christians; and.you 
have sanctioned all these outrages upon justice, law, and humanity, by succumbing 
to the power and the policy of Georgia, by accommodating your legislation to her 
irbitrary will ; by tearing to tatters your old treaties with the Indians, and by con- 
straining tliem, undev peine fm-te et dure, to the mockery of signing other treaties 
with you, which, at the first moment wiien it shall suit your purpose, you will again 
tear to tatters and scatter to the four winds of heaven, till the Indian race shall be 
extinct upon this continent, and it shall become a problem, beyond the solution of 
antiquaries and historical societies, vyliat the rtd man of the forest was. 

This, sir, is the remote and piimitive cause of the present Indian war; your ov/n 
injustice, sanctioning and sustaining that of Georgia and Alabama, lliis system 
of policy was first introduced by the present administration of your national gov- 
ernment. It is directly the reverse of that system which had been pursued by all 
the preceding administrations of this government under the present Constitution. 
Tliat system consisted m the most anxious and persevering effoits to civilize the 
Indians ; to attach them to the soil upon which they lived ; to enlighten their minds, 
to* soften and to humanize their hearts ; to fix in permanency their habitations ; and 
to turn them from the wandering and precarious pursuits of the hunter, to the 
tillage of the ground, to the cultivation of corn and cotton ; to the comforts of the 
firesTde ; to the delights of home. This was the system of Washington and of 
Jefferson, steadily pursued by all their successors, and to which all your treaties 
and all your laws of intercourse with the Indian tribes were accommodated. The 
whole system is now broken up ; and instead of it you have adopted that of expel- 
ling by force or by compact, all the Indian tribes from their own territories and 
dwellings, to a region beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Missouri, beyond the 
Arkansas, bordering upon Mexico; and there you have deluded them with the 
hope tliat they will find a permanent abode — a final resting place from your never 
ending rapacity and persecution. There you have undertaken to lead tl e willing 
and to drive the reluctant, by fraud or by force : by treaty, or by the sword and the 
rifle; all the remnants of the Seininoles, of the Creeks, of the Cherokees, of the 
Choctaws, and of how many other tribes I cannot now stop to enumerate. In the 
process of this violent and heartless operation, you have met with all the resistance 
which men in so helpless a condition as that of the Indian tribes could make. Of 
the iminediale causes of the war we are not yet fully informed; but I fear you will 
find them, like the remoter causes, all attributable to yourselves. It is in the last 
agonies of a people, forcibly torn and driven from the soil which they had inherited 
from their fathers, and whicli your own example, and exhortations, and instructions, 
and treaties, had riveted more closely to their hearts; it is in the last convulsive 
struggles of their despair, that this war has originated ; and if it brings with it some 
portion of the retributive justice of heaven upon our own people, it is our melan- 
choly duty to mitigate, as far as the public resources of the national treasury will 
permit, the distress of the innocent of our own kindred and blood, suffering under 
the necessary consequences of our own wrong. I shall vote for the resolution.* — 
Speech in the House of Representatives, May, 1836. 

* This speech was delivered without premeditation or notes. No report of it was made by 
any of the usual reporters for the newspapers. Mr. Adams has written it out himself, from 
recollection, at the request of several of liis friends, for publication. It is, of course, not in 
the precise language used by him in the House. There are some amphfications of the argu- 
ments which he used, and, perhap.s, some omissions which have escaped his recollection. 
The substance of the speech is the same. 

9 



66 



MOKAL MAP OF THE UNITtD STATES. 



[The Arms on the coin of the Mexican Republic, are Freedom's Eagle destroying the Ser- 
pent Tyranny ; and jts reverse bears the Cap of Liberty, diffusing its radiance universally.'] 




Slavery is a dark spot on the face of the nation! — Lafayette. 



lONDON Patriot — house of commons. 67 



[The following brief extracts confirm Mr. Adams' opinion, that Great Britain is 
not indifferent to this monstrous outrage on the laws of nature and of nations.] 

LONDON PATRIOT. 

The British public ought to be made aware of what is going on at present in 
Texas ; of the true cause and the true nature of the contest between the Mexican 
authorities and the American slave-jobbers. 

Texas has long been the Nabolh's vineyard of brother Jonathan. For twenty 
years or more, an anxiety has been manifested to push back the boundary of the 
United States' territory, of which the Sabine river is the agreed line, so as to include 
the rich alluvial lands of the delta of the Colorado, at the head of the Gulf of 
Mexico. There are stronger passions at work, however, than the mere lust of 
territory — deeper interests at stake. Texas belongs to a republic which has abol- 
ished slavery ; the object of the Americans is to convert it into a slaveholding state ; 
not only to make it the field of slave cultivation, and a market for the Maryland 
slave-trade, but, by annexing it to the Federal Union, to strengthen in congress 
the preponderating influence of the southern slaveholding states. 

This atrocious project is the real origin and cause of the pretended contest for 
Texian independence — a war, on the part of the United States, of unprovoked 
aggression for the vilest of all purposes. — Jm/j/ 6, 1836. 



HOUSE OF COMMONS— August 6. 

TEXAS. 

Mr. B. Hot rose to bring forward the motion of which he had given notice. It was 
on a subject of the utmost importance to the cause of humanity, of immense impor- 
tance to our colonial possessions, and to our merchants who had embarked seventy 
millions of dollars in Mexico. If the United States were suffered to wrest Texas 
from Mexico, would not Cuba, and other Mexican possessions, fall a prey to the 
United States? The war now going on in Texas was a war not for independence, 
but for slavery ; and he would contend, that should the revolt in Texas be success- 
ful, that province would still be bound by the treaty Mexico entered into with this 
country when Texas formed part of the Mexican dominions, to prevent the carrying 
on of the slave-trade within its territory ; the number of states in the Union had 
originally been thirteen; they were now increased to twenty-six, and if Texas were 
added to the Union, there could bo no doubt the basis of the connection would be 
to establish slavery and the slave-trade permanently in that province. He begged 
to ask the noble lord opposite. Lord Palmerston, if within the last ten days he had 
not received an application from the Mexican government for the good offices of 
this country to remonstrate with the United States against the gross violation of 
treaties, and the aggressions of their southern states. 

He was of opinion that England ought not only to remonstrate with America, but 
to have a naval force on the coast to support Mexico against American aggressions. 

The honorable member concluded by moving, "That an humble address be 
presented to the Crown, praying that his Majesty will be graciously pleased to 
direct that such measures be taken as to his Majesty may seem proper, to secure 
the fulfilment of the existing treaty between this country and Mexico, and to prevent 
the establishment of slavery and traffic in slaves, in the province of Texas, in the 
Mexican territory." 

Mr. H. G. Ward seconded the amendment, which involved a subject upon 
which he had been long and was deeply interested. The importance of Texas 
was but little known in this house or by the country. The province itself consisted 
of a large tract of the finest land, it had numerous good and onlv two bad ports, and 
the possession of it would give to the parties obtaining it the full command of the 
whole Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican government on its first intercourse with this 
country, an intercourse of increased and still increasing commercial importanc« to 



68 HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

this country, had stipulated for the abolition in its territory of the slave-trade, and 
he (Mr. Ward) could state that this stipulation had been most rigidly enforced and 
observed, and he did not believe that there were now in the Mexican states, except 
Texas, twenty slaves. To Texas, the United States had long turned tcvrtous 
eyes, and to obtain possession of that province had been the first object of its policy. 
During his residence in Alexico, America contrived to have a proposal made to the 
Mexican government offering ten millions of dollars for coitain privileges in Texas, 
and that proposition having been refused, America then proceeded to encourage the 
settlement of Texas with the refuse of her own southern states, who took possession 
of the land without title, or pretension to any title, and thus drew into it a popula- 
tion exclusively slave and American. A declaration of independence next followed. 
That declaration issued from men recognising no law, and signed by only one 
Mexican, the President of the Province, a man of talent, it was true, but who had 
dealt most largely in Texas lands, and sought his own advantage. He was sup- 
posed to have formed a connexion with some influential nien of the American 
Cabinet, and amongst them with Mr. Forsyth. What then had followed? — 
America having created a population in Texas in the way he had stated, and hav- 
ing given to it every possible assistance, a committee of foreign relations in the 
senate, came in with a report signed by Mr. Clay, for whom he entertained a high 
respect, discussing the necessity of recognising the declaration of the mdependence 
of Texas. 1'he tendency of the whole report was to show the propriety at a future 
time, to annex Texas to the United States. The question, therefore, for the house 
to consider was — tirst, the general policy of allowing a state, without remonstrance, 
to extend itself, and th\is put an end to the trade between this country and Mexico 
— the connexion between which could be completely cut off by a few American 
privateers ensconced in the Texian ports. The principle had bc-3n disclaimed in 
]835, when it was proposed to annex part of Cuba to the United States, and that 
instance ought to 2;uide this country in not allowing this contemplated extension of 
the American territory. The next consideration was, whether the country would now 
allow a renewal and an increase of the slave-trade? Such would be llip result of 
this policy on the part of America, and from a pamphlethe had received this day, it 
appeared that the non-slavery states of America had themselves been roused to a 
sense of their own danger if that policy were successful. It was well known that 
there had long been a struggle between the slave states and the non-slave states in 
congress, and parties were equally balanced; but if Texas should eventually be 
annexed to the Federal Union, eighteen votes in congress at Washington would be 
added to those in favor of that most degrading feature in the civilized world — 
slavery. On all these grounds, he most cordially supported the motion of the 
honorable member from Southampton. (Hear, hear.) — Speech of Mr. H. G. Ward, 
formerly Envoy Extraordinary to Mexico from England. 

Mr. F. Buxton expressed his belief that if the Americans should obtain posses- 
sion of Texas, which had been truly described as forming one of the fairest harbors 
in the world, a greater impulse would be given to the slave-trade than had been 
experienced for many years. If the British government did not interfere to prevent 
the Texian territory from falling into the hands of the American slaveholders, in 
all probability a greater traffic in slaves would be carried on during the next fifty 
years, than had ever before existed. The war at present being waged in Texas, 
differed from any war which had ever been heard of. 

It was not a war for the extension of territory — it was not a war of aggression — 
it was not one undertaken for the advancement of national glory; it was a war 
which had for its sole object the obtainingof a market for slaves — (hear, hear.) He 
would not say that the American government connived at the proceedings which 
had taken place ; but it was notorious that the Texiaus had been supplied with 
munitions of war of all sorts by the slaveholders of the United States— (hear, hear.) 
W^ithout meaning to cast any censure upon the government, he thought that the 
house had a right to demand that the secretary for foreign affairs adojit strong 
measures to prevent the establishment of a new and more extensive market for the 
slave-trade than had ever before existed. — London Times. 



WILLIAM B. REED. 69 



WILLIAM B. REED. 



Every member of congress from tliis state, with one or two exceptions, sustained 
the prohibition of slavery on the ground of its consistency with Pennsylvania princi- 
ples; and in their course, let it be remembered, they were cheered and encouraged by 
the positive and peremptory instructions of the legislature. Those instructions are 
now before me, and I submit a portion of them to the consideration of the House, as 
being a renewed expression of the opinions of 1780. They form a link between the 
principles contained in the act of abolition, and one other legislative precedent of a 
later date, presently to be referred to. — These resolutions were passed on the 22d 
of December, 1819. 

"The senate and house of representatives of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 
whilst they cherish the riglit of the individual states to express their opinions \ipon 
all public measures proposed in the congress of the Union, are aware tliat its useful- 
ness must, in a great degree, depend upon the discretion wilii which it is e.vercised ; 
they believe that the right ought not to be resorted to, upon trivial subjects or unim- 
portant occasions, but they are alsa persuaded, that there are moments when the 
neglect to exercise it would be a dereliction of public duty. 

" Such an occasion as in their judgment demands the frank, expression of the senti- 
ments of Pennsylvania, is now presented. 

"Under these convictions, and in tlie full persuasion that upon this topic there is 
but one opinion in Pennsylvania, 

" Ficsolved, That the senators and representatives of this state in the congress of 
the United States be, and they are hereby requested to vote against the admission of 
any territory, as a state, into the Union, unless 'the further introduction of slavery 
or involuntary servitude, except the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted, shall be prohibited, and all children born within the said 
terrif^ry, after its admission into the Union as a state, shall be free.' " 

The last piecedent to which I shall refer the House on this subject, is the resolu- 
tion of the 23d of January, 1829, relative to the abolition of slavery in the District 
of Columbia, which instructed our senators and representatives to procure, if 
practicable, the passage of a law to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, in 
such a manner as they may consider consistent with the right, of individuals, and 
the constitution of the United States. You, Mr. Speaker, will recollect this resolu- 
tion. — It received neariy the unanimous sanction of both branches of the legislature. 
Such, then, are the recorded sentiments, the voluntary and unsolicited expressions 
of Pennsylvania legislation on this subject of domestic slavery, as a matter of 
national, as well as municipal concern, and the question recurs whether at this late 
hour of invigorated philanthropy and intelligence, when we are forced, as has been 
shown, to the utterance of our sentiments, we shall disavow these cherished opinions. 
If the swords of the Texians should win tor them an existence independent of 
Mexico, it must necessarily be so precarious, that .Tpplication for admission into our 
Union would follow as a measure of necessary self-defence. One of the complaints 
made by the Texians is that the Mexican government will not permit the inti educ- 
tion of slaves, and one of the first fruits of independence and secure liberty (unnatural 
as is the paradox) will be the extension of slavery, and both the domestic and foreign 
slave-trade, over the limits of a territory large enough to form five states as large as 
Pennsylvania. Such being the result, what becomes of any real or imaginary 
balance between the South and the North — the slaveholding and non-slaveholding 
interests? Five or more slaveholding states, with their additional representation, 
thoroughly imbued with southern feeling, thoroughly attached to what the South 
Carolina resolutions, now before us, call "the patriarchal institution of domestic 
slaverv," added to the Union, and where is the security of the North, and of the 
interests of free labor? — These are questions worth considering — the more so, as 
the war fever which is now burning in the veins of this community, and exhibiting 
itself in all the usual unreflecting expressions of sympathy and resentment, has 
disturbed the judgment of the nation, and distorted every notion of right and wrong. 
Let the Texians win independence as they can. That is their affair, not ours. But 
let no statesman that loves his country think of admitting such an increment of 
slaveholding population into this Union! He (Mr. R.) could not but fear that there 



70 T£XAS. 

was a deep laid plan to admit Texas into the Union, with a view to an increase of 
slaveholding representation in congress ; and while he viewed it, in connexion with 
the growing indifference perceptible in some quarters, he could not but feel melancholy 
forebodings. — Speech vi the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, June llth, 1S36. 



The following document, considering the avouched character of the gentlemen 
whose names are signed to it, and attest its truth, is entitled to a place in our 
columns : — JValional Intelligencer. 

TO THE PUBLIC. 

The undersigned deem it an act of justice, not to themselves alone, but to the 
community of which they are members, more especiallj' to those whose generous 
sympathies were so deeply enlisted in the cause of Texas, to make known the 
causes which have induced them to abandon an enterprise m which tiiey embarked 
with so many fond and flattering hopes. They would have been glad to have been 
spared this painful task. They take no pleasure in the performance of an act 
which may tend to check the universal current of kindness and sympathy which 
has been manifested by the people of Kentucky towards the people of Texas, from 
the beginning of their revolution down to the present time. They have too distinct 
a recollection of their own feelings when they quitted their homes, to aid the 
cause, as they then thought, of civil and religious freedom, not to know that their 
return and this brief expose of their motives which induced it, will cause a pang of 
mortification in many bosoms which now throb with exultation in the hope of Texian 
freedom. Nothing but a sense of duty — of the obligation which rests upon them to 
justify themselves to the world, conld now impel them to expose the unhappy civil 
and political condition of Texas, to declare, as they now do, their solemn convictions 
of her totnl uii worthiness of aid and sympathy. We might perhaps be content with 
this declaration of our opinions, but we will proceed briefly to fortify these opinions 
by a detail of facts. 

We will not dwell upon the false assurances made to us by men professing to be 
the accredited agents of Texas in this country. At a time when the cause of Texas 
was dark and gloomy, when Santa Anna seemed designed to carry desolation over 
the whole country, those men were prodigal of promises, and professing to be 
authorized to speak in the name of the Texian Government, made assurances of 
ultimate remuneration, which they knew at the lime to be false, and wliich time 
proved to be so. 

V/e now state that our personal observation and undoubted information enabled 
us fully to perceive, 1st. That the present population of Texas seemed wholly inca- 
pable of a just idea of civil and political liberty, and that, so far as the extension of 
liberal principles is concerned, it is of but httle moment whether Mexico or Texas 
succeed in the struggle. 

2d. That the mass of the people, from the highest functionary of their pretended 
government to the humblest citizen (with but few exceptions), are animated alone by 
a desire of plunder, and appear totally indifferent whom they plunder, friends or foes. 

3d. That even now there is really no organized government in the country, no 
laws administered, no judiciary, a perpetual struggle going on between the civil and 
military departments, and neither havmg the confidence of the people, or being 
worthy of it. We will here state one or two facts, which may tend to show the 
estimation in which they are respectively held by each other, and their capacity to 
enforce their orders. The Secretary of War came down with a quartermaster, and 
steamboat to carry his loading, consisting of provisions, clothing, &c., to the main 
army. Captain Switzer, volunteer emigrant from Ohio, who had lately arrived, 
wanted some clothing for his men, and determined that unless he was^irsi supplied 
with such articles as he desired, the expeiHlion should not proceed. He took pos- 
session of the fort under the conmiand of Colonel Morgan, loaded the cannon, and 
prepared to fire on them, if they attempted to move without his permission. He 
then sent a file of men on board, and took the vessel in his own possession, and sent 
the honorable secretary, with his quartermaster and steamboat, backto Velasco ! 
Again, the president and cabinet appointed General Lamar to the chief command 



NEW-YORK SUN. 71 

of the anny, the army promptly letused to receive iiiin, and the •,>bU'er and authority 
of the cabinet were contemptuously disregarded. The army then doubtlessly after 
due deliberation, resolved that the cabinet was either corrupt or imbecile, (probably 
both,) and it being necessary, in their opinion, to get rid of them, determined to do 
so by a summary process. They therefore sent on an officer « ith instructions 
forthwith to arrest them, and brini^ them on to head quarters to be tried according to 
the military usage. This order, however, was not executed, simply because the 
officer charged with its execution had not the physical force requisite. 

These facts and others sufficiently demonstrate to us that the cabinet was defi- 
cient in all the requisites of a good government, and that no one in his senses would 
trust himself, his reputation, or his fortunes, to their charge or control. Charged 
with treason, bribery, and usurpations, weak in their councils, and still weaker in 
power to enforce their orders, we perceived at once that we must look for safety 
and proper inducements elsewhere. We then tirrned our eyes to the army, and a 
scene still more disheartening presented itself; undisciplined, and without an effort 
to become SO; not a roll called, nor a drill ; no regular encampment; no authority 
nor obedience ; with plundering parties for sclf^emohiment, robbing private indi- 
viduals of their property. We could see nothing to induce us to embark our for- 
tunes and destinies witii them. With these views and facts, we could but sicken 
and wonder at tiie vile deceptions wiiich had been practised upon us ; yet we are 
told that this people ':ad risen up in tlieir might to vindicate the cause of civil and 
religious hberty. It is a mockery of the very name of liberty. They are stimulated 
by that motive which such men can only appreciate — the hope of plunder. They are 
careless of the form of government under wliich they live, if that government will 
tolerate licentiousness and disorder. Such is a brief, but, we sincerely believe, a 
faithful picture of a country to which we were invited with so much assiduity, and 
such the manner in which we were received and treated. 

We might multiply iacts in support of each proposition here laid down, to show 
the miserable condition of things in Texas, and the utter impossibility that a man 
of honor could embark in suclr a cause with such men. Should it be rendered 
necessary, we may yet do so ; but for the present we will pause with this remark, 
that if there be any, now, in Kentucky, whose hearts are animated with the desire 
of an honorable fame, or to secure a competent settlement for themselves or families, 
they must look to some other theatre than the plains of Texas. We Vvould say to 
them. Listen not to the deceitful and hypocritical allurements of land speculators, 
tcho wish you to fight for their benefit, and u-ho are as liberal of promises as they are 
faithless in performance. We are aware of the responsibiiily which we incur by 
this course. We are aware that we subject ourselves to the misrepresentations of 
hired agents and unprincipled landmongers ; but we are willing to meet it all, rely- 
ing upon the integrity of our motives and (he correctness of our course. We left 
our native land, our peaceful fireside, with a solemn resolution to devote our undi- 
vided energies to stop the course of Mexican desolation, and build up a free and 
flourishing commonwealth. The very fact of our goins sufficiently indicates the 
depth and sincerity of our devotion to the cause. Our return, and the circumstances 
which caused it, equally proclaim our infatuation. That others may not be alike 
deluded, is an additional motive with us to make this publication. 



Lexington, Sept. 10, 1836. 



EDWARD J. VvTLSON, 
G. L. POSTLETHWAITE. 



NEW-YORK SUN. 

Extract from General Houston's letter to General Dunlap, of jNashville— 
" For a portion of this force %ce must look to the United States. It cannot reach us 
too soon. There is but one feeling in Texas, in my opinion, and that is to establish 
the independence of Texas, and to be attached to the United States." 

Here, then, is an open avowal by the cotnmander-in-chief of the Texian army, 
that American troops will be required to seize and sever this province of the Mexi- 



72 NEW-YORK SUN. 

can republic, for the purpose of uniting it to ours ; and this avowal is made by 8 
distinguisiied American citizen, in the very face of that glorious constitution of his 
country, which wisely gives no power to its citizens for acquiring foreign territo-y 
by conquest, their own territory being more than amply sufficient to gratify any 
safe ambition ; and in the face, too, of the following solemn and sacred contract of 
his country with the sister republic which he would dismember: 

" There shall be a firm, inviolable, and universal peace, and a true and sincere 
friendship between the United States of America, and the United Mexican States, 
in all the extent of their possessions and territories, between their people and citi- 
zens respectively, without distinction of persons or places." 

In the earlier days of oiu- republic, when a liigh-mindcd and honorable fidelity to 
its constitution was an object -proudly paramount to every mercenary consideration 
that might contravene it, an avowed design of tiiis kind against the possessions of a 
nation with whom tlie United States were at peace, would have subjected its author, 
if a citizen, to tlie charge of high treason, and to its consequences. When A?.ron 
Burr and his associates were supposed to meditate the conquest of Mexico, and 
attempted to raise troops in the southern states to achieve it, they were arrested for 
treason, and Burr, their chief, was tried for his life. But now, behold ! the conquest 
of a part of the same country is an object openly proclaimed, not in the letters of 
General Houston alone, but by man\' of our wealthiest citizens jit public banquets, 
and by the hireling presses in the chief cities of our Union. The annexation of a 
foreign territory to our own by foreign conquest, being thus unhlushingly avowed, 
and our citizens, who are integral portionsof our national sovereignty, being openly 
invited and incited to join the crusade with weapons of war, it becomes an mter- 
esting moral inquiry — what is there in the public mind to excuse or even to palliate 
so flagrant a prostitution of national faith and honor in these days, any more than 
in the days that are past? The answer is ready at hand, and is irrefutable. An 
extensive and well organized gang of swindlers in Texas lands, have raised the cry, 
and the standard of "Liberty !" and to the thrilling charm of this glorious word, 
which stirs the blood of a free people, as the blast of the bugle arouses every nerve 
of the warhorse, have the generous feelings of our citizens responded in ardent delu- 
sion. But, as the Conunercial Advertiser truly declares, "JNever was the Goddess 
of American Liberty invoked more unrighteously;" and we cannot but believe that 
the natural sagacity, good sense, and proud regard for their national honor, for 
which our citizens are distinguished in the eyes of all nations, will spedily rescue 
them from the otherwise degrading error in which that vile crew of mercenary, 
hypocritical swindlers would involve them. The artful deceivers, however, have 
not relied upon the generosity and noble sympathy only of our fellow citizens, for 
they insidiously presented a bribe to excite their cupidity also. Thiy have not only 
falsely represented the Texian cause as one of pure, disinterested liberty and justice, 
as opposed to perfidious tyranny and cruel oppression, but they have themselves 
assumed something more than the liberty which they basely and hypocritically ad- 
vocate, by impudently promising a fertile paradisiacal piece of Texian land, a mile 
square, to every American citizen and foreign emigrant, who will sally forth to cap- 
ture it from the Mexican republic ! Induced by one or both of these objects, many 
hundreds of our enterprising citizens left their own ample and unobjectionable 
country, to unite with Irish, English, and other foreign adventurers in a war, from 
the fullest success of which, only some six or eight land companies, who have 
fraudulently and audaciously monopolized the Texian territory, would sain an im- 
portant b?nefit. And to this shrine of Manmion, concealed by the crowding banners 
of ostensible liberty, have many hundreds of our gallant youth been treacherously 
sacrificed— sacrificed by a mercenary treachery, compared to which, that exercised 
by Santa Anna, in defence of the republic of which he was president, was inno- 
cence and patriotism. 

Had we in the Texians, a brave and injured people, struggling in the land of 
their birth, or even of their adopiion, for those abstract and social rights of mankind 
which were the objects of our revolution, and which ive obtained and enjoy, theirs 
would be a cause with which angels might sympathize, and which the bolts of 
heaven might well be launched to aid. But is it' such a cause ? — Deceived by mis- 
representations, we were ourselves led so to consider it, in its earlier etTorts ; but a 
fair examination of facts has undeceived us, and we look in vain cither for such a 
cause or such a people in the Texians. What are the facts ? 



MOBILE MERCANTILE ADVERTISER. 73 

We pledge ourselves to answer the question with a perspicuity which shall defy- 
all future obscuration, and with a rigid adherence to truth which shall defy the most 
desperate efforts to refute. Yv'e have, at present, only room to state, in brief, that 
the Texian revolution was concerted by the planters and slave speculators in the 
southern states ever since the first permission given by the Spanish authorities to 
Moses Austin, of Missouri, in the year 1820, to introduce three hundred families, 
professing the Catholic religion, as colonists of a grant of land which he obtained 
on this express condition. From that time to the present moment, the aggressions 
have been on the part of the colonists, under the sanction of the southern specu- 
lators ; and not until their purpose of getting a physical force into the province 
which should detach it from Mexico, and make it a slaveholding state, became 
flagrant and undisguised, had the settlers ever received aught but protection, encour- 
agement, toleration and kindness, from the Mexican government. They paid no 
taxes, had their own laws and tribimals, were allowed to profess and exercise all 
the religions they chose, though contrary to the Mexican constitution ; enjoyed all 
the fruits of a beautiful and bounteous soil without return or tribute to the govern- 
ment to which it belonged, and were, without exception, the freest civilized people 
upon the face of the earth. But the object of the colonizing land agents of the 
South was to make tliis prolific province their own, and the ticld of a new and 
lucrative negro slavery. To this they still tenaciously adhere ; and if they can 
induce a strong force of our American youth to shed their blood for the unjust and 
avaricious cause of slavery, under the name of Texian liberty and independence, 
they will undoubtedly secure their object. We doubt not tlie ability of our gallant 
countrymen to exterminate any number of Mexicans that can be brought against 
them, but in fighting for the union of Texas with the United States, which is the 
avowed meaning of "Texian independence," thev will be fighting for that which, 
at no distant period, will inevitably DISSOLVE THE UNION. The slave 
states, having this eligible addition to their land of bondage, with its harbors, bays, 
and well bounded geographical position, will ere long cut asunder the federal tie, 
which they have long held with ungracious and unfraternal fingers, and confederate 
a new and distinct slaveholding republic, in opposition to the whole free republic of 
the North. Thus early will be fulfilled the prediction of the old politicians of Eu- 
rope, that our Union could not remain one century entire ; and then also will the 
maxim be exemphfied in our history, as it is in the history of the slaveholding 
repubUcs of old, that liberty and slavery cannot long inhabit the same soil. — Jiew- 
York Sun, 1836. 



The South wish to have Texas admitted into the Union for two reasons. First, 
to equaUse the South with the North, and secondly, as a convenient and safe place 
calculated from its peculiarly good soil and salubrious climate for a slave population. 
Interest and political safety both and alike prompt the action and enforce tne argu- 
ment. The South contends that preservation and justice to themselves call for that 
aid to be tendered to them which would be given by the acquisition of Texas. They 
are not safe as they are. — They are not balanced with the free states. Their ex- 
posure to insurrection is fourfold, with not one-fourth the means to redress their 
grievances. They contend that they have an internal foe within, and an awful foe 
in all those who liemand the emancipation of their slaves, and who call upon them 
to give up their property now and for ever. The question is, therefore, put by the 
South to congress and the country. "Shall we have justice done us by the admis- 
sion of Texas into the Union, whenever that admission may be asked by the Texians 
themselves?'" The question is a fair one, and must soon be met by congress and 
the nation. The North almost to a man will answer no. The West will be 
divided, and the discussion of the question will find two strong and powerful par- 
ties ; the one in favor of Texas, a slaveholding province, and the other against it- 
■Mobile (Ma.) MercantUe Jidvertiser. 



10 



74 NEUTRALITV. 



NEUTRALITY ! 

Next in turn was the change in tlie government effected by Santa Anna ; and 
next the Texian revolution. Was it not laughable to see these Texians, all of them, 
generally speaking, slaveholders ; adhering to the constitution of 1824, one article 
of which emancipates all the slaves in Mexico ! Was it not laughable to see them 
proclaiming a constitution, of which, eleven years ago, the Americans in Texas had 
prohibited the proclamation by the JMexican authorities there, under the heaviest 
threats ! — What man of common sense can believe in this humbug ? None, gentle- 
men ; none but those that have risked their thousands in this country ; and they, 
whoever they may be, feign to believe it. The statements made throughout the 
United States, of tyranny and oppression on the part of Mexico toward the Ameii- 
can citizens in Texas, are slanderous falsehoods, fabricated to create and nurture 
the worst prejudices and jealousies. The Americans in Texas have had their own 
way in every case, and on every occasion ; and whenever there happened a legis- 
lative act that was, from any cause, repugnant to the feelings of the people of Texas, 
it was silenced at once. In short, if there has existed a good cause of complaint in 
Texas, it was that men were loo much their own masters, and too httle under the 
restraint of any law. Any allegation to the effect that the Mexican government 
had deceived citizens of the United States in relation to promises of lands first made 
to them, is false, and I defy any one to show a forfeiture of title to lands, lohen the 
conditions of the grant had been fulfilled by the settler. 

Now, sir, as to tiie war: here I will ask Americans, (except the speculators,) 
how many military incursions, insurrections, and rebellions, avowedly for the pur- 
pose of snatching Texas from its proper owners, will, in their mind, justify Mexico 
in driving from its territories, the pirates that would thus possess themselves of the 
country? Be it remembered, that these revolutions have never been attempted by 
the resident citizens of Texas, but in every case by men organized in the United 
States for the purpose, and coming from afar : why, a single provocation of this 
nature were ample justification ; but Texas has, from the time of the adjustment of 
the boundary by Wilkinson and Ferrara, experienced seven or eight. Now what 
is Mexico to do ? Can it be expected that she will maintain a large army in Texas 
merely for the purpose of guarding against the attempts of a few? Certainly not. 
Were the population of the United States one of savages, from one of which we 
should not expect good policy, and that international equity which has heretofore 
been the boast of Americans, it might perhaps be expected ; but Mexico has rested 
under the belief that when a few marauders should interfere with her possessions, 
the American people would not object to see them properly chastised. But, gentle- 
men, what at present seems to be the situation of affairs ? Not only has Houston 
avowed that his acts were prompted by the highest authority within the United 
States, but a general officer of the army of the United States presents himself, with 
forces, upon the Mexican fronfier. His first orders are to preserve perfect neutrality ; 
and his particular attention is called to one of the articles of the treaty between the 
United States and Mexico, by which the contracting parties bind themselves to 
restrain their respective Indians within their own hmits. General Gaines having 
arrived, is at once in correspondence with the Texian officers, and despatches to 
Washington "information derived from the highest authority in Texas" — this, too, 
against the most positive information given to General CTaines, by respectable and 
intellicrent people, that misrepresentations of all kinds were fabricating, and would 
be invented to induce him to cross. Upon the information thus given at Washing- 
ton by General Gaines, Mr. Secretary Cass writes that he has laid before the 
executive his letter, and that his construction, in the uncertainty of the boundary 
between the United States and Mexico being acquiesced in, he, General Gaines, is 
authorized to cross the Sabine river, and proceed as far as Nacogdoches, seventy-five 
miles within the Mexican territory. This permission is given, however, only under 
certain contingencies; (and I am certain that these have not been present.) Here 
I must be permitted to ask, (and I address myself to every American who loves his 
country, and is proud of it,) Iiov it can be maiiitjined, tind.'rai.y pretext, that honor 
would suggest, or justify, that the frontier between the United States and Mexico is 
uncertain 1 For a long time after the acquisition of Louisiana, the United States 



NEUTRALITY. ?6 

exercised jurisdiction only to the Rio Hondo, but six miles west of Natchitoches, 
the intermediate territory between tl.is point and the Sabine river, about twenty 
miles, being considered neutral territory. At last General Wilkinson, for the 
United States, and General Ferrara, for Mexico, arranged the Sabine as the fron- 
tier ; a suiTey made by Mr. Melish also establishes the Sabine, at this point, as the 
frontier. A subsequent regular and formal treaty between the two governments 
confirms this frontier, and has especial and particular reference to Melish's map 
and survey ; and more recently still, the present executive declares by proclamation, 
that the two governments shall continue to exercise jurisdiction within the territory 
now occupied by either. This was the result of a conference with the Mexican 
minister, who justly represented that Arkansas had overleaped the boundary be- 
tween the two governments, and was in the exercise of jurisdiction within a part of 
the Mexican dominions. 

There is certainly a part of the boundary not yet traced ; but it is a hne passing 
over land only, and nmning from the thirty-second degree of latitude on the Sabine, 
due north to Red River. Tlius it will be perceived, that all the Sabine, from the 
sea to the thirty-second degree, is the boundary ; and that the Sabine above the 
thirty-second degree, belongs exclusively to Mexico ; — hence the impossibility of 
there being uncertainty about it. I will ask again, if there is doubt as to the Sabine 
frontier, how it happens that when the Tcxians were petitioning congress for a 
recognition of their independence, no information was imparted to the national 
legislature of the circumstances. — Again, if there is a doubt as to the Sabine fron- 
tier, how happens it that war in that territory, by regularly organized armies of 
citizens of the United States, is tolerated against a friendly power? No, sir; 
there is no doubt or uncertainty as to the Sabine frontier. Mr. Secretary Cass 
cannot be aufait, or he is willing to lend Irimself for a most unworthy purpose. 

General Gaines having, however, persuaded the executive and secretary that the 
line was "imaginary," and that he " might cross it," orders troops from forts Towson 
and Gibson, to occupy Nacogdoches, as I have said before, seventy-five miles be- 
yond the hmits of Mexico ; and what is worse, directs those troops to cross the Red 
River above, and march through the country to the place of destination ; so that 
the troops came into the Mexican dominions at least two hundred miles beyond 
Nacogdoches, and, having arrived there, are ordered to fortify and erect other 
buildings. How is this, gentlemen? Call you all this neutrality ? 

But, for a farther description of our affairs here, I will add the following facts. 
The Americans (I mean the regulars) and Texians. appear to understand each 
other perfectly. The neutrality'is preserved on the part of General Gaines, by 
allowing all volunteers, and other organized corps destined for Texas, to pass in 
hundreds and thousands undisturbed, but keeps in check any attempt on the part 
of the native Mexicans and Indians, to act against tlie Texians. The Texians 
are allowed to wage war against a friendly power, in a district of country claimed 
by the United States. The prisoners of war taken by the Texians are ignorant to 
which party they are subject. The American general claims the country only from 
Mexico, but has no objections to the carrying on of war against Mexico in the dis- 
trict he claims ! Pray, sir, let Americans speak honestly, and let them say whether 
any government has," within the last century, placed itself in so ridiculous a light? — 
not only ridiculous, but contemptible. Will not any honest man confess at once 
that General Gaines, or any authority clothing him with the discretion so mdis- 
creetly used, would never have dreamed of the like against a government able and 
ready to defend itself, and punish such arrogance ? What is Europe to say to this ? 
Will not Mexico complain? And will there be no sympathy for her?— LeUer to the 
Editors of the J^ew-York Commercial Advertiser, dated JsTacogdoches, Texas, Septem- 
ber 14, 1836. 



76 GENERAL WILKINSON. 

[Alas, for our national degeneracy and infamy; — In 1811, the suspicion of being 
accessory to this horrible outrage against the laws of nature, and of nations, led a 
distinct charge in the trial for treason of] 

GENERAL WILKINSON. 

Charge V. — That he, the said James Wilkinson, while commanding the army 
of the United States, by virtue of his said Gommission, and being bound by the duties 
of his office to do all that in him lay, to discover and to frustrate all such enormous 
violations of the law as tended to endanger the peace and tranquillity of the United 
States, did, nevertheless, unlawfully combine and conspire to set on foot a military 
expedition against the territories of a nation, then at peace with the United States. 

Specification, He, the said James Wilkinson, in the years 1805 and 1806, com- 
bining and conspiring with Aaron Burr and his associates, to set on foot a military 
expedition against the Spanish provinces and territories in America. — WilkinsotVs 
Memoirs, Vol. 2. 

[The Charleston Mercury, March, 1837, gives the following in the report of 
speech of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, at a public dinner given him in Charleston or 
his return from congress.] 

" He spoke of Texas, and at that name was interrupted with long and loud cheer 
ing, and his concluding words on that topic, pronounced with deep emotion, tha 
'Texas must be annexed to the Union,' were answered with a universal burst ot 
applause, that showed how glowing was the sympathy of the people of South Caro 
lina with the heroes of San Jacinto. He pointed out clearly the importance to the 
South, of the annexation," &c. 



RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TESTIMONY. 

Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia, 1787. 

The Synod, taking into consideration the overture concerning 
slavery, came to the following judgment : 

The Synod of New York and Philadelphia do highly approve ot 
the general principles in favor of universal liberty that prevail in 
America, and the interest which many of the states have taken in 
promoting the abolition of slavery. They earnestly recommend it 
to all the members belonging to their communion, to give those per- 
sons who are at present held in servitude, such good education as to 
prepare them for the better enjoyment of freedom. And they more- 
over recommend that masters, wherever they find servants disposed 
to make a just improvement of the privilege, would give them a pecu- 
lium, or grant them sufficient time, and sufficient means of procuring 
their own liberty at a moderate rate ; that thereby they may be brought 
into society Avith those habits of industry that may render them useful 
citizens. And finally, they recommend it to all their people to use 
the most prudent measures, consistent with the interests and the state 
of civil society in the countries where they live, to procure eventually 
the final abolition of slavery in America. 

[This "judgment" was also republished as the decision of the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1793.] 

The second aimunciation of the sentiments of the Presbyterian 
Church upon the subject of slavery, was made in the year 1794, wheu 
the "scripture proofs," notes, &c., were adopted by the General As- 



RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TESTIMONY. 77 

sembly. Their doctrine at that period is stated in the note b, appended 
to the one hundred and forty-second question of the larger Catechism, 
in these words : 

" 1 Tim. i, 10. The law is made for man stealers. This crime 
among the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment; 
Exodus xxi, 16 ; and the apostle here classes them with sinners of 
the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import, comprehends 
all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, 
or in retaining them in it. Hominum fures, qui servos vel liberos 
abducunt, retineiit, vendunt, vel emunt. Stealers of men are all 
those who bring off slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them. 
To steal a freeman, says Grotius, is the highest kind of theft. In 
other instances, we only steal human property, but when we steal or 
retain men in slavery, we seize those who, in common with ourselves, 
are constituted by the original grant, lords of the earth. Genesis i, 28. 
Vide Poll synopsin in loc." 

Advice given by the Assembly, in relation to Slavery, in 1815. 

" The committee to which was committed the report of the com- 
mittee to which the petition of some elders, who entertain conscien- 
tious scruples on the subject of holding slaves, together with that of 
the Synod of Ohio, concerning the buying and selling of slaves, had 
been referred, reported ; and their report being read and amended, 
was adopted, and is as follows : — 

" The General Assembly have repeatedly declared their cordial 
approbation of those principles of civil liberty which appear to be 
recognised by the Federal and State governments, in these United 
States. They have expressed their regret that the slavery of the 
Africans and of their descendants still continues in so many places, 
and even among those within the pale of the Church ; and have urged 
the Presbyteries under their care, to adopt such measures as will 
secure at least to the rising generation of slaves, within the bounds 
of the Church, a religious education ; that they may be prepared for 
the exercise and enjoyment of liberty, when God, in his providence, 
may open a door for their emancipation. The committee refer said 
petitioners to the printed extracts of the Synod of New York and 
Philadelphia, for the year 1787, on this subject, republished by the 
Assembly in 1793; and also to the extracts of the minutes of the 
Assembly for 1795 ; which last are in the following words : — 

" ' A serious and conscientious person, a member of a Presbyterian 
congregation, who views the slavery of the negroes as a moral evil, 
highly offensive to God, and injurious to the interests of the gospel, 
lives under the ministry of a person, or among a society of people, 
who concur with him in sentiment on the subject upon general princi- 
ples ; yet, for particular reasons, hold slaves, and tolerate the practice 
in others, — Ought the former of these persons, under the impressions 
and circumstances above described, to hold Christian communion 
with the latter V 



78 RELIGJOUS AND MORAL TESTIMONY. 

"Whereupon, after due deliberation, it was Resolved; that as the 
same difference of opinion with respect to slavery takes place in 
sundry other parts of the Presbyterian Church, notv/ithstanding which, 
they live in charity and peace, according to the doctrine and practice 
of the apostles ; it is hereby recommended to all conscientious per- 
sons, and especially to those whom it immediately respects, to do the 
same. At the same time, the General Assembly assure all the Churches 
under their care, that they view with the deepest concern any vestiges 
of slavery which may exist in our country, and refer the Churches to 
the records of the General Assembly, published at different times ; 
but especially to an overture of the late Synod of New York and 
Philadelphia, published in 1787, and republished among the extracts 
from the minutes of the General Assembly of 1793, on that head, 
with which they trust every conscientious person will be fully satisfied. 

" This is deemed a sufficient answer to the first petition ; and with 
regard to the second, the Assembly observe, that although in some 
sections of our country, under certain circumstances, the transfer of 
slaves may be unavoidable, yet they consider the buying and selling 
of slaves by way of traffic, and all undue severity in the management 
of them, as inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel. And they re- 
commend it to the Presbyteries and Sessions under their care, to 
make use of all prudent measures to prevent such shameful and 
unrighteous conduct." — Digest, page 339. 

''A full expression of the Assemblfs views of slavery in 1818. 

" The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, having taken 
into consideration the subject of slavery, think proper to make known 
their sentiments upon it. 

" We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human 
race by another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred 
rights of human nature ; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God 
which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves ; and as totally 
irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, 
which enjoin that ' all things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you, do ye even so to them.' Slavery creates a paradox in the 
moral system — it exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal beings 
in such circumstances as scarcely to leave them the power of moral 
action. It exhibits them as dependant on the will of others, whether 
they shall receive religious instruction ; whether they shall know and 
worship the tiue God ; whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of 
the gospel ; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish the 
endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors 
and friends ; whether they shall preserve their chastity and purity, or 
regard the dictates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the 
consequences of slavery ; consequences not imaginary, but which 
connect themselves with its very existence. The evils to which the 
slave is always exposed, often take place in their very worst degree 
and form ; and where all of them do not take place, still the slave is 



RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TESTIMONY. 79 

deprived of his natural rights, degraded as a human being, and ex- 
posed to the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may 
inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which inhumanity and 
avarice may suggest. 

" From this view of the consequences resulting from the practice 
into which Christian people have most inconsistently fallen, of enslav- 
ing a portion of their brethren of mankind, it is manifestly the duty 
of all Christians, when the inconsistency of slavery with the dictates 
of humanity and religion has been demonstrated, and is generally 
seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest, and unwearied 
endeavors, as speedily as possible to efface this blot on our holy 
religion, and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery throughout 
the world. We earnestly exhort them," the slaveholders, " to con- 
tinue and to increase their exertions to effect a total abolition of sla- 
very. — We exhort them to suffer no greater delay to take place in this 
most interesting concern than a regard to the public welfare truly and 
indispensably demands. 

" As our country has inflicted a most grievous injury on the unhappy 
Africans by bringing them into slavery, our country ought to be gov- 
erned in this matter by no other consideration than an honest and 
impartial regard to the happiness of the injured party, uninfluenced 
by the expense or inconvenience which such a regard may involve. 
We, therefore, warn all who belong to our denomination of Christians, 
against unduly extending this plea of necessity ; against making it a 
cover for the love and practice of slavery, or a pretence for not using 
efforts that are lawful and practicable to extinguish the evil. 

" Having thus expressed our views of slavery, and of the duty 
indispensably incumbent on all Christians to labor for its complete 
extinction, we proceed to recommend, with all the earnestness and 
solemnity which this momentous subject demands, a particular atten- 
tion to the following points. 

" We recommend to all the members of our religious denomination, 
to facilitate and encourage the instruction of their slaves in the princi- 
ples and duties of the Christian religion, by granting them liberty to 
attend on the preaching of the gospel ; by favoring the instruction of 
them in Sabbath schools, and by giving them all other proper advan- 
tages for acquiring the knowledge of their duty both to God and man. 
It is incumbent on all Christians to communicate religious instruction 
to those who are under their authority, and the doing of this in the 
case before us, so far from operating, as some have apprehended that 
it might, as an excitement to insubordination and insurrection, would 
operate as the most powerful means for the prevention of those evils." 

The Assembly here subjoin a note, which proves that the quietude 
of the island of Antigua, when the slaves of the neighboring West 
Indian islands had been in commotion, was owing to the religious 
instruction of the Moravian Missionaries. To which may since be 
added, the examples of Demarara and Jamaica. This document of 
the Assembly is thus closed : " We enjoin it on all Church Sessions 
and Presbyteries to discountenance, and as far as possible to prevent 



so METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH — S. HOPKINS, D. D. 

all cruelty, of whatever kind, in the treatment of slaves ; especially 
the cruelty of separating husband and wife, parents and children ; and 
that which consists in selling slaves to those who will either them- 
selves deprive those unhappy people of the blessings of the gospel, or 
who will transport them to places where the gospel is not proclaimed, 
or where it is forbidden to slaves to attend upon its institutions. The 
manifest violation or disregard of this injunction, ought to be con- 
sidered as just ground for the discipline and censures of the Church. 
And if it shall ever happen that a Christian professor in our commu- 
nion shall sell a slave who is also in communion with our Church, 
contrary to his or her will and inclination, it ought immediately to 
claim the particular attention of the proper Church judicature ; and 
unless there be such peculiar circumstances attending the case as can 
but seldom happen, it ought to be followed without delay, by a sus- 
pension of the offender from all the privileges of the Church, till he 
repent and make all the reparation in his power, to the injured party." 
— Digest of the General Assembly page 341. 



METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

There is only one condition previously required of those who desire 
admission into these societies, a desire to flee from the wrath to come, 
and to be saved from their sins. But wherever this is really tixed in 
the soul, it will be shown by its fruits. It is therefore expected of all 
who continue therein, that they should continue to evidence their 
desire of salvation, by doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, 
especially that which is most generally practised, such as — " the buy. 
ing and selling of men, women, or children, with an intention to enslave 
them." 

Of slavery, — Question. — What shall be done for the extirpation 
of the evil of slavery 'i 

Answer 1. — We declare that we are as much as ever convinced of 
the great evil of slavery ; therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible 
to any official station in our Church hereafter ; where the laws of the 
state in which he lives will admit of emancipation, and permit the 
liberated slave to enjoy freedom. 

Aiiswer 2. — When any travelling preacher becomes an owner of a 
slave or slaves, by any means, he shall forfeit his ministerial charac- 
ter in our Church, unless he execute, if it be practicable, a legal eman- 
cipation of such slaves, comformably to the laws of the state in which 
he lived. — Doctrine and Discipline. 



SAMUEL HOPKINS, D. D. 

The master is not a proper judge in this case ; you are not a proper 
judge of your treatment of your slaves; and though you may think you 
b-eat them very well, in some instances at least, if not in a constant 



SAMUEL HOPKINS, D. D. 81 

way, they justly think themselves used very hardly, being really sub- 
jected to many hardships, which you would very sensibly feel and 
resent, if you were in their place ; or should see one of your children 
a slave in Algiers, treated so by his master. There are but few mas- 
ters of slaves, I believe, who do not use them in a hard, unreasonable 
manner, in some instances at least ; and most do so in a constant 
way ; so that an impartial, attentive bystander will be shocked with 
it, while the niaster is wholly insensible of any wrong. They who 
from us have visited the West Indies, have beheld how servants are 
used by their masters there, with a degree of horror, and pronounced 
them very unreasonable and barbarous ; while the master, and per- 
haps his other domestics, have thought they were used well, being 
accustomed to such usage, and never once reflecting that these 
blacks were in any sense on a level with themselves, or that they 
have the least right to the treatment white people may reasonably 
expect of one another ; and being habituated to view these slaves 
more beneath themselves, than the very beasts really are. And are 
we not, most of us, educated in these prejudices, and led to view the 
slaves among us in such a mean, despicable light, as not to be sensi- 
ble of the abuses they suffer ; when, if we or our children should 
receive such treatment from any of our fellow men, it would appear 
terrible in our sight 1 The Turks are by education and custom, taught 
to view the Christian slaves among them so much beneath themselves, 
and in such an odious light, that while ihey are treating our brethren 
and children, (we being judges) in the most unreasonable and cruel 
manner, they have not one thought that they injure them in the least 
degree. 

Are you sure your slaves have a sufficiency of good food, in sea- 
son; and that they never want for comfortable clothing and bedding? 
Do you take great care to deal as well by them in these things, as 
you would wish others would treat your own children, were they 
slaves in a strange land ? If your servants complain, are you ready 
to attend to them 1 Or do you in such cases frown upon them, or do 
something worse, so as to discourage their ever applying to you, 
whatever they may suffer, having learned that this would only be 
making bad worse 1 Do you never fly into a passion, and deal with 
them in great anger, deciding matters respecting them, and threatening 
them, and giving sentence concerning them, from which they have 
no appeal, and perhaps proceed to correct them, when to a calm by- 
stander you appear more fit to be confined in a bedlam, than to have 
the sovereign, uncontrollable dominion over your brethren, as the sole 
lawgiver, judge, and executioner^ Do not even your children domi- 
neer over your slaves ? Must they not often be at the beck of an 
ungoverned, peevish child in the family ; and if they do not run at 
his or her call, and are not all submission and obedience, must they 
not expect the frowns of their masters, if not the whip 1 

If none of these things, my good sir, take place in your family, 
have we not reason to think you almost a singular instance 1 How 
common are things of this kind, or worse, taking place between mas- 

II 



82 SAMUEL HOPKINS, D. D, 

lers and their slaves ? In how few instances, if in any, are slaves 
treated, as the masters would wish to have their own children treated, 
in like circumstances 1 How few are fit to be masters ? To have the 
sovereign dominion over a number of their fellow men, being his pro- 
perty, and wholly at his disposal ; who must abide his sentence and 
orders, however unreasonable, without any possibility of relief? 

This leads me to observe, that our distresses are come upon us in 
such a way, and the occasion of the present war is such, as in the 
most clear and striking manner to point out the sin of holding our 
blacks in slavery, and admonish us to reform, and render us shock- 
ingly inconsistent with ourselves, and amazingly guilty if we refuse. 
God has raised up men to attempt to deprive us of liberty ; and the 
evil we are threatened with is slavery. — This, with our vigorous 
attempts to avoid it, is the ground of all our distresses, and the general 
voice is, " We will die in the attempt, rather than submit to slavery." 
But are we at the same time making slaves of many thousands of our 
brethren, who have as good a right to liberty as ourselves, and to 
whom it is as sweet as it is to us, and the contrary as dreadful ! Are 
we holding them in the most abject, miserable state of slavery, with- 
out the least compassionate feeUng towards them or their posterity ; 
utterly refusing to take off the oppressive galling yoke ! Oh, the 
shocking, the intolerable inconsistency ! And this gross, barefaced 
inconsistency is an open, practical condemnation of holding these our 
brethren in slavery ; and in these circumstances the crime of persist- 
ing in it becomes unspeakably greater and more provoking in God's 
sight ; so that all the former unrighteousness and cruelty exercised 
in this practice, is innocence, compared with the awful guilt that is 
now contracted. And in allusion to the words of our Saviour, it may 
with great truth and propriety be said, " If he had not thus come in 
his Providence, and spoken unto us, (comparatively speaking,) we 
had not had sin, in makmg bond-slaves of our brethren ; but now, we 
have no cloak for our sin." 

And if we continue in this evil practice, and refuse to let the 
oppressed go free, under all this light and admonition, suited to 
convince and reform us ; and while God is evidently correcting us 
for it, as well as for other sins, have we any reason to expect deliv- 
erance from the calamities we are under? May we not rather look 
for slavery and destruction, like that which came upon the obstinate, 
unreformed Jews 1 In this light, I think, it ought to be considered 
by us ; and viewed thus, it afl'ords a most forcible, formidable argu- 
ment, not to put off hberating our slaves to a more convenient time ; 
but to arise, all as one man, and do it with all our might, without 
delay, since delaying in this case is awfully dangerous, as well as 
unspeakably criminal. — Dialogue on African Slavery, 1776, repuh- 
lished 1785, by the N. Y. Manumission Society, whose president was 
John Jay. 



JONATHAN EDWARDS. 88 



JONATHAN EDWARDS. 



I propose to mention a i'ew reasons against the right of the slave- 
trade — and then to consider the principal arguments which I have 
ever heard urged in favor of it. What will be said against the slave- 
trade will generally be equally applicable to slavery itself; and if 
conclusive against the former, will be equally conclusive against the 
latter. 

As to the slave-trade, I conceive it to be unjust in itself, abomina- 
ble on account of the cruel manner in \\4iich it is conducted, and 
totally wrong on account of the impolicy of it, or its destructive ten- 
dency to the moral and political interests of any country. 

It is unjust in itself. It is unjust in the same sense and for the 
same reason as it is to steal, to rob, or to murder. It is a principle, 
the truth of which hath in this country been generally, if not univer- 
sally acknowledged, ever since the commencement of the late war, 
that all men are born equally free. If this be true, the Africans are 
by nature equally entitled to freedom as we are ; and therefore, we 
have no inore right to enslave, or to afford aid to enslave them, 
than they have to do the same to us. They have the same right to 
their freedom, which they have to their property or to their lives. 
Therefore to enslave them, is as really, and in the same sense wrong, 
as to steal from them, to rob, or to murder them. 

There are, indeed, cases in which men may justly be deprived of 
their liberty, and reduced to slavery ; as there are cases in which 
they may be justly deprived of their lives. But they can justly be 
deprived of neither, unless they have, by their own voluntary conduct, 
forfeited it. Therefore, still, the right to liberty stands on the same 
basis with the right to hfe. And that the Africans have done some- 
thing whereby they have forfeited their liberty, must appear, before 
we can justly deprive them of it ; as it must appear that they have 
done something whereby they have forfeited their hves, before we 
may justly deprive them of these. 

This trade, and this slavery, are utterly wrong on the ground of 
their impolicy. In a variety of respects they are exceedingly hurtful 
to the states, which tolerate them. 

They are hurtful, as they deprave the morals of the people. The 
incessant and inhuman cruelties practised in the trade and in the sub- 
sequent slavery, necessarily tend to harden the human heart against 
the tender feelings of humanity, in the masters of vessels, in the 
sailors, in the factors, in the proprietors of slaves, in their children, 
in the overseers, in the slaves themselves, and in all who habitually 
see those cruelties. Now the eradication, or even the diminution 
of compassion, tenderness, and humanity, is certainly a great de- 
pravity of heart, and must be followed with correspondent depravity 
of manners. And measures which lead to such depravity of heart and 
manners, cannot but be extremely hurtful to the state, and conse- 
quently are extremely impolitic. 



84 JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

African slavery is exceedingly impolitic, as it discourages industry. 
Nothing is more essential to the political prosperity of any state, 
than industry in the citizens. But in proportion as slaves are multi- 
plied, every kind of labor becomes ignominious ; and in fact, in those 
of the United States, in which slaves are the most numerous, gentle- 
men and ladies of any fashion disdain to employ themselves in busi- 
ness, which in other states is consistent with the dignity of the first 
families and first offices. In a country filled with negro slaves, labor 
belongs to them only, and a white man is despised in proportion as 
he applies to it. Now how destructive to industry in all of the lowest 
and middle classes of cittzens, such a situation, and the ]>revalence 
of such ideas will be, you can easily conceive. The consequence 
is, that some will nearly starve, others will betake themselves to the 
most dishonest practices, to obtain the means of living. 

As slavery produces indolence in the white people, so it produces 
all those vices which are naturally connected with it ; such as intem- 
perance, lewdness, and prodigality. These vices enfeeble both the 
body and the mind, and unfit men for any vigorous exertions and em- 
ployments, either external or mental ; and those who are unfit for such 
exertions, are already a very degenerate race ; degenerate, not only 
in a moral, but a natural sense. They are contemptible too, and 
will soon be despised even by their negroes themselves. 

Slavery has a most direct tendency to haughtiness also, and a 
domineering spirit and conduct in the proprietors of the slaves, in 
their children, and in all who have the control of them. A man who 
has been bred up in domineering over negroes, can scarcely avoid 
contracting such a habit of haughtiness and domination, as will express 
itself in his general treatment of mankind, whether in his private 
capacity, or in any office, civil or military, with which he may be 
vested. Despotism in economics naturally leads to despotism in 
politics, and domestic slavery in a free government is a perfect sole- 
cism in human all'airs. 

How baneful all these tendencies and eflects of slavery must be to 
the public good, and especially to the public good of such a free 
country as ours, I need not inform you. 

In the same proportion as industry and labor are discouraged, is 
population discouraged and prevented. This is another respect in 
which slavery is exceedingly impolitic. That population is prevented 
in proportion as industry is discouraged, is, I conceive, so plain that 
nothing needs to be said to illustrate it. Mankind in general will enter 
into matrimony as soon as they possess the means of supporting a 
family. But the great body of any people have no other way of 
supporting themselves or a family, than by their own labor. Of 
course, as labor is discouraged, matrimony is discouraged and popu- 
lation is prevented. But the impolicy of whatever j)roduces these 
effects will be acknowledged by all. The wealth, strength, and glory 
of a state depend on the number of its virtuous citizens ; and a state 
without citizens is at least as great an absurdity as a king without 
subjects. 



JONATHAN EDWARDS. 85 

Having thus considered the injustice and ruinoiis tendency of the 
slave-trade, I proceed to attend to the ))rincipal arguments urged in 
favor of it. 

The right of slavery is inferred from the instance of Abraham, who 
had servants born in his house and bought with his money. But it 
is by no means certain that these were slaves, as our negroes are. 
If they were, it is unacountablo that he went out at the head of an 
army of them to fight his enemies. No West India planter would 
easily be induced to venture himself in such a situation. It is far 
more probable, that, similar to some of the vassals under the feudal 
constitution, the servants of Abraham were only in a good measure 
dependant on him, and protected by him. But if they were to all 
intents and purposes slaves, Abraham's holding of them will no more 
prove the right of slavery, than his going in to Hagar, will prove it 
right for any nian to indulge in criminal intercourse with his domestic. 

From the divine permission given to the Israelites to buy servants 
of the nations roimd about them, it is argued, that we have a right to 
buy the Africans and hold them m slavery. See Lev. xxv, 44- — 47, 
But if this be at all to the purpose, it is a permission to every nation 
under heaven to buy slaves of the nations round about them ; to us, 
to buy of our Indian neighbors ; to them, to buy of us ; to the French, 
to buy of the English, and to the Fnglish, to buy of the French; and 
so through the world. If then this argument be valid, every man has 
an ontire right to engage in this trade, and to buy and sell any other 
man of another nation, and any other man of another nation has an 
entire right to buy and sell him. Thus, according to this construc- 
tion, we have in Lev. xxv, 43, &c., an institution of an universal 
slave-trade, by which every man may not only become a merchant, 
but may rightfully become the merchandise itself of this trade, and 
ntay be bought and sold like a beast. Now this consequence will 
be given up as absurd, and therefore, also, the construction of Scrip- 
ture from which it follows must be given up. Yet it is presumed, 
that there is no avoiding that construction or the absurdity flowing 
from it, but by admitting that this permission to the Israelites to buy 
slaves has no respect to us, but was in the same manner peculiar to 
them, as the permission and command to subdue, destroy, and extir 
pate the whole Canaanitish nation ; and, therefore, no more gives 
countenance to African slavery, than the command to extirj)ate the 
Canaanites gives countenance to the extirpation of any nation in 
these days, by an universal slaughter of men and women, young men 
and maidens, infants and sucklings. 

It is further pleaded, that there were slaves in the times of the 
apostles ; that they did not forbid the holding of those slaves, but gave 
directions to servants, doubtless referring to the servants of that day, 
to obey their masters and count them uorthy of all honor. 

To this the answer is, tliat the apostles teach the general duties of 
servants who are righteously in the state of servitude, as many are or 
may be, by hire, by mdenture, and by judgment of a civil court. But 
they do not say whether the servants in general of that day were 



86 JONATHAN EDWAftDS. 

justly holden in slavery or not. In like manner they lay down the 
general rules of obedience to civil magistrates, without deciding conf 
cerning the characters of the magistrates of the Roman empire in 
the reign of Nero. And as the Apostle Paul requires masters to 
give their servants that which is just and equal, (Col. iv, 1,) so if any 
were enslaved unjustly, of course he in this text requires of the mas- 
ters of such to give them their freedom. Thus the apostles treat the 
slavery of that day in the same manner that they treat the civil gov- 
ernment ; and say nothing more in favor of the former, than they say 
in favor of the latter. 

As to the pretence, that to prohibit or lay aside this trade, would 
be hurtful to our commerce, it is sufficient to ask, whether, on the 
supposition that it were advantageous to the commerce of Great 
Britain to send her ships to these states, and transport us into per- 
petual slavery in the West Indies, it would be right that she should 
go into that trade. 

It is said, that some men are intended by nature to be slaves. If 
this means, that the author of nature has given some men a license 
to enslave others, this is denied, and proof is demanded. If it means 
that God has made some of capacities inferior to others, and that the 
last have a right to enslave the first ; this argument will prove, that 
some of the citizens of every country have a right to enslave other citi- 
zens of the same country ; nay, that some have a right to enslave their 
own brothers and sisters. But if this argument means, that God in 
his providence suffers some men to be enslaved, and that this proves, 
that from the beginning he intended they should be enslaved, and 
made them with this intention ; the answer is, that in like manner he 
suffers some men to be murdered, and in this sense he intended and 
made them to be murdered. Yet no man in his senses will hence 
argue the lawfulness of murder. 

We all dread polifical slavery, or subjection to the arbitrary power 
of a king, or of any man or men not deriving their authority from the 
people. Yet such a state is inconceivably preferable to the slavery 
of the negroes. Suppose that in the late war we had been subdued 
by Great Britain, we should have been taxed without our consent. 
But these taxes would have amounted to but a small part of our 
property. Whereas the negroes are deprived of all their property ; 
no part of their earnings is their own ; the whole is their masters. 
In a conquered state we should have been at liberty to dispose of 
ourselves and of our property, in most cases, as we should choose. 
We should have been free to live in this or that town or place ; in 
any part of the country, or to remove out of the country ; to apply to 
this or that business ; to labor or not ; and excepting a sufficiency 
for taxes, to dispose of the fruit of our labor to our own benefit, or 
that of our children, or of any other person. But the unhappy negroes 
in slavery can do none of these things. They must do what they are 
commanded, and as much as they are commanded, on pain of the 
lash. They must live wherever they are placed, and must confine 
themselves to that spot on pain of death. 



JONATHAN EDWARDS. 87 

So that Great Britain, in her late attempt to enslave America, com- 
mitted a very small crime, indeed, in comparison with the crime of 
those who enslave the Africans. 

The arguments which have been urged against the slave-trade, are 
with little variation applicable to the holding of slaves. He who 
holds a slave, continues to deprive him of that liberty, which was 
taken from him on the coast of Africa. And if it were wrong to 
deprive him of it in the first instance, why not in the second. If this 
be true, no man has a better right to retain his negro in slavery, than 
he had to take him from his native African shores. And every man 
who cannot show, that his negro hath by his voluntary conduct for- 
feited his liberty, is obligated immediately to manumit him. Un- 
doubtedly we should think so, were we holden in the same slavery in 
which the negroes are. And our text requires us to do to others as 
we would that they should do to us. 

To hold a slave, who has a right to his liberty, is not only a real 
crime, but a very great one. Does this conclusion seem strange to 
any of you ? You will not deny that liberty is more valuable than 
oroperty ; and that it is a greater sin to deprive a man of his whole 
liberty during life, than to deprive him of his whole property ; or, that 
man stealing is a greater crime than robbery. Nor will you deny, 
that to hold in slavery a man who was stolen, is substantially the 
same crime as to steal him. These principles being undeniable, I 
leave it to yourselves to draw the plain and necessary consequence. 
And if your consciences shall, in spite of all opposition, tell you, that 
while you hold your negroes in slavery, you do wrong, exceedingly 
wrong ; that you do not, as you would that men should do to you ; 
that you commit sin in the sight of God ; that you daily violate the 
plain rights of mankind, and that in a higher degree than if you com- 
mitted theft or robbery, let me beseech you not to stifle this convic- 
tion, but attend to it, and act accordingly, lest you- add to your former 
guilt that of sinning against the light of truth, and of your own con- 
sciences. 

To convince yourselves, that your information being the same, to 
hold a negro slave is a greater sin than fornication, theft, or robbery, 
you need only bring the matter home to yourselves. I am willing to 
appeal to your own consciences, whether you would not judge it to 
be a greater sin for a man to hold you or your children during life in 
such slavery, as that of the negroes, than for him to indulge in one 
instance of licentious conduct, or in one instance to steal or rob. 
Let conscience speak, and I will submit to its decision. — The Injus- 
tice and Impolicy of the slave-trade and of the slavery of the Africans 
— a Sermon in New Haven, Sept. 15, 1791. 



88 ELIAS HICKS JESSE TORREY, JR. 



ELTAS HICKS. 

We, in an enlightened age, have greatly surpassed, in brutality and 
injustice, the most ignorant and barbarous ages ; and while we are 
pretending to the finest feelings ot' humanity, are exercising unpre- 
cedented cruelty. We have planted slavery in the rank soil of sordid 
Cvarice ; and the product has been misery in the extreme. 

The slavedealer, the slaveholder, and the slavedriver are virtually 
the agents of the consumer. Whatever we do by another, we do 
ourselves. 



JESSE TORREY, JR. 

To enumerate all the horrid and aggravating instances of man- 
stealing, which are known to have occurred in the state of Delaware, 
within the recollection of many of the citizens of that state, would 
require a volume. In many cases, whole families of free colored 
people have been attacked in the night, beaten nearly to death with 
clubs, gagged and bound, and dragged into distant and hopeless cap- 
tivity ; leaving no traces behind, except the blood from their wounds. 

Durmg the last winter, the house of a free black family was broken 
open, and its defenceless inhabitants treated in the manner just men- 
tioned, except that the mother escaped, from their merciless grasp, 
while on their way to the state of Maryland. The plunderers, of 
whom there were nearly half a dozen, conveyed their prey upon 
horses ; and the woman being placed on one of the horses, behind, 
improved an opportunity, as they were passing a house, and sprang off. 
Not daring to pursue her, they proceeded on, leaving her youngest 
child a little farther along, by the side of the road, in expectation, it 
is supposed, that its cries would attract the mother ; but she prudently 
waited until morning, and recovered it again in safety. 

I consider myself more tully warranted in particularizing this fact, 
from the circumstances of having been at Newcastle, at the time that 
the woman was brought with her child, before the grand jury, for 
examination ; and of having seen several of the persons against 
whom bills of indictment were found, on the charge of being engaged 
in the perpetration of the outrage ; and also that one or two of them 
were the same who were accused of assisting in seizing and carrying 
off another woman and child whom I discovered at Washington. A 
monster in human shape was detected in the city of Philadelphia, 
pursuing the occupation of courting and marrying mulatto women, 
and selling them as slaves. In his last attempt of this kind, the fact 
having come to the knowledge of the African population of this city, 
a mob was immediately collected, and he was only saved from being 
torn in atoms, by being deposited in the city prison. They have 
lately invented a method of attaining their object, through the instru- 



JOHN KENRICK. 89 

mentality of jie laws : — Having selected a suitable free colored per- 
son to make a pitch upon, the kidnapper employs a confederate, to 
ascertain the distinguishing marks of his body ; he then claims and 
obtains him ta a slave, before a magistrate, by describing those marks, 
and proving he truth of his assertions by his well-instructed accom- 
pUce. 

From the best information that I have had opportunities to collect, 
in travelling by various routes through the states of Delaware and 
Maryland, I am fully convinced that there are, at this time, within 
the jurisdiction of the United States, several thousands of legally free 
people of color, toiling under the yoke of involuntary servitude, and 
transmitting the same fate to their posterity ! If the probability of 
this fact could be authenticated to the recognition of the congress of 
the United States, it is presumed that its members, as agents of the 
constitution, and guardians of the public liberty, would, without hesi- 
tation, devise means for the restoration of those unhappy victims of 
violence and avarice, to their freedom and constitutional personal 
rights. The work, both from its nature and magnitude, is impracti- 
cable to individuals, or benevolent societies ; besides, it is perfectly 
a national business, and claims national interference, equally with the 
captivity of our sailors in Algiers. — Domestic Slavery and Kidnapping. 



JOHN KENRICK. 

" The Horrors of Slavery.^'' — To invite attention to this melan- 
choly subject, and to excite sympathy for the suffering, is the object 
of this publication. The compiler firmly believes that his countrymen 
stand exposed to the righteous rebukes of Providence for this glaring 
inconsistency and inhumanity ; that whether they shall be tried at the 
bar of reason, the bar of conscience, or the bar of God, they may justly 
be condemned out of their own mouths ; and that all their arguments, 
and all their fghtings for liberty, may be produced as evidence, that 
as a people, tliey do unto others as they would not that others should 
do unto them. The suffering and degraded sons of Africa are groan- 
ing under bondage in a land of boasted freedom, — nay, groaning 
under oppression from the hands of men who would probably involve 
a whole nation in war and bloodshed — or even set the world onjire, 
rather than submit to a fiftieth part of the violation of natural rights 
which they inflict on the African race. 

Whenever the government of the United States shall come to the 
righteous and consistent determination, that all the inhabitants shall 
he free, it is believed that no insurmountable obstacles will be found 
in the way of its accomphshment. Whether it would be just, and 
equal, and eligible, to take money from the public treasury to redeem 
African slaves, may possibly become a question for the consideration 
of congress. It may not, however, be amiss for the people to inquire 
whether it would be more just and equitable to continue to withhold 

12 



90 THE SLAVE-TRADE. 

from more than a million (now two millions) of our fellow beings 
those essential blessings, without which we ourselves should consider 
life insupportable. 

If it should be pleaded, that the powers of the general government 
are too limited to ensure the personal, civil, and religious liberties of 
all ; can a doubt be entertained of the readiness of the people, when 
they fairly understand the subject, to enlarge those powers to any 
extent necessary for the attainment of an object of such transcendant 
importance ? To say " they would not," would be to utter a most 
shameful libel against a majority of the freemen of the United States. 
— The Horrors of Slavery. 



THE SLAVE-TRADE. 

The 128th number of the Edinburgh Review contains an article on this subject, 
of more than ordinary interest. In 1831, a convention was concluded between 
the governments of England and France for the more effectual suppression of the 
slave-trade ; in furtherance of which object, the two contracting parties agreed to 
the mutual right of search, within certain geographical limits. They moreover 
covenanted to use their best endeavors, and mutually to aid each other, to induce all 
the maritime ■pmoers to agree to the terms of their conventimi. The fact that such over- 
tures had been made to some nations has occasionally been liinted at, but the 
results we have now for the first time learned. 

Prior to the convention with France, Great Britain had formed treaties to nearly 
the same effect with Brazil, the Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, and Spain. All, 
therefore, that remained in regard to those nations, was to induce them to agree with 
France to all the articles of the convention, and with Great Britain to such of them 
as were not already incorporated in her treaties with them respectively. To all the 
other potoers of Europe, says the Review, and to the United States, France and Eng- 
land conjointly have made the strongest representations on the subject, and urged them 
by every consideration of justice, humanity, and policy, to make a combined and simul- 
taneous effort for at once annihilating what they themselves had, twenty years before, 
denounced as the curse of Jifrica and the disgrace of Europe. Orders were also sent 
to the British minister at Buenos Ayres, to induce the government there, as well as 
that of Monte Video, to enter into an effective treaty for the abolition of the trade. 

The results of these various applications may be thus briefly stated, — Denmark and 
Sardinia promptly sent in their adhesion to the new convention. From Austria, the 
Netherlands, and Sweden, no answer has yet been received. Prussia, Russia, and 
Naples, under different pretexts, demur ; Prussia and Naples declaring that they 
have no vessels at all in the African seas, and Russia evading the proposition by 
offering to " take up the thread of the negotiations as left by former congresses, and 
to open fresh conferences for the purpose of seeking out the most effectual means 
of preventing the slave-trade ;" that is, as Lord Palmerston expresses it, of going 
backward instead of forward in the matter. The answer of the Brazilian govern- 
ment is, that as soon as the Portuguese trade in slaves is stopped, there will be none 
carried on between Africa and Brazil. Portugal evades the question; the minister 
replying, after three months' delay, that his loss of time from attending the cham- 
bers, has prevented his coming to any resolution on the subject. " We much mis- 
take," says the reviewer, " the firmness as well as zeal in this cause, that will be 
shown by any man that we are likely to have at the head of foreign affairs, if such 
conduct be tamely submitted to from a country bound to us for services in time 
past, and in an especial manner at the present moment, and when not only honor 
and good faith, but mere honesty, are concerned in the fulfilment of her engage- 
ments. We must, when other means have failed, just take the matter into our own 
hands. .... Let England say the Portuguese slave-trade shall cease, as Portugal 
has Wgiged to tts that it shall, and who will, or dught to gainsay us ?" Betx^'eien 



EDINBURGH REVIEW. 91 

Great Britain and Spain, during the late ministry of Martinez de la Rosa, after 
continued efforts on the part of the former for eighteen months, a treaty was formed, 
containing not only a stipulation for the capture of vessels equipped for the slave- 
trade, but providing for the penal castigation of the owners, captams, and supercar- 
goes, — for the breaking up of the condemned vessels, — and for the delivery of the 
captives to British authorities. 'I'he geographical limits, also, within which the right 
of search is allowed, are far more extensive than those specified in the French con- 
vention. The immediate motive with Spain in subscribing to this treaty, was the 
expectation of assistance from England in carrying on the war against the Car- 
lists : but the treaty itself is not the less valuable on that account. The great and 
essential difference between the present treaty and all previous ones concluded with 
Spain, for the suppression of the slave-trade, is this, that it does not depend for its 
fulfilment upon Spanish co-operation. All is left to the regulation of the British 
government, and the activity of British cruisers. The good effects of the arrange- 
ment are already seen. A vessel which arrived in England on the 16tli of iVlay, 
from the African station, reported that nineteen Spanish vessels, captured under the 
new treaty, were waiting at Sierra Leone, when she left, for adjudication ; whereas 
the whole number of such vessels captured imder the former treaties, had not, for 
several years, averaged more than six per anmiin." 

We come now to our own country, the United States. And what shall we say? 
What must we say ? What does the truth compel us to say ? Why, that of all the 
countries appealed to by Great Britain and France on this momentous subject, the 
United Slates is the only one which has returned a decided negative. We neither do 
any thing ourselves to put down the accursed traflic, nor afford any facilities to enable 
others to put it down. Nay, rather, we stand between the slave and his deliverer. We 
are a drawback — a dead weight on the cause of bleeding humanity. How long shall 
this shameful apathy continue? How long shall we, who call ourselves the cham- 
pions of freedom, close our ears to the groans, and our eyes to the tears and blood, 
and-our hearts to the untold anguish of thousands and tens of thousands who are 
every year torn from home and friends and bosom companions, and sold into hope- 
less bondage, or perish amid the horrors of the " middle passage" ? From the 
shores of bleeding Africa, and from the channels of the deep, from Brazil and from 
Cuba, Echo answers, "How long?" — JST. Y. Journal of Commerce, Sept., 1835. 



EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

We have, however, to record one instance of positive refusal to our request of 
accession to these conventions, and that, we grieve to say, comes from the United 
States of America — the first nation that, by its statute law, branded the slave-tiade 
with the name of piracy. The conduct, moreover, of the President, does not 
appear to have been perfectly candid and ingenuous. There appears to have been 
delay in returning any answer, and when returned, it seems to have been of an 
evasive character. In the month of August, 1833, the English and French iiiinis- 
ters jointly sent in copies of the recent conventions, and requested the accession of 
the United States. At the end of March following, seven months afterwards, an 
answer is returned, which, though certainly not of a favorable character in other 
respects, yet brings so prominently into view, as the insuperable objection, that the 
mutual right of search of suspected vessels was to be extended to the shores of tlie 
United States, (though we permitted it to American cruisers off the coast of our 
West Indian colonies^) that Lord Palmerston was naturally led to suppose that the 
other objections were superable. He, therefore, though aware how much the whole 
efficiency of the agreement will be impaired, consents to waive that part of it, in 
accordance with the wishes of the President, and in the earnest hope that he will, 
in return, make some concessions of feeling or opinion to the wishes of England and 
France, and to the necessities of a great and holy cause. The final answer, how- 
ever, is, that under no condition, in no form, and with no restrictions, will the 
United States enter into any convention or treaty, or make combined efforts of any 
sort or kind, with other nations, for the suppression of the trade. We much mis- 
take the state of public opinion in the United States, if its government will not find 



92 ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER. 

itself under the necessity of chan^ng this resolution. The slave-trade will hence- 
forth, we have little doubt, be carried on under that flag of freedom ; but as in no 
country, after our own, have such persevering efforts for its suppression been made, 
by fnen the most distinguished for goodness, wisdom, and eloquence, as in the 
United States, we cannot believe that their flag will long be prostituted to such 
vile purposes ; and either they must combine with other nations, or they must 
increase the number and efficiency of their naval forces on the coast of Africa and 
elsewhere, and do their work single handed. We say this the more, because the 
motives which have actuated the government of the United States in this refusal, 
clearly have reference to the words, " right of search." They will not choose to 
see that this is a mutual restricted right, effected by convention, strictly guarded by 
stipulations for one definite object, and confined in its operations within narrow 
geographical limits ; a right, moreover, which England and France have accorded 
to each other without derogating from the national honor of either. If we are right 
in our conjecture of the motive, and there is evidence to support us, we must con- 
sider that the President and his ministers have been, in this instance, actuated by a 
narrow provincial jealousy, and totally unworthy of a great and independent nation. 



ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER. 

The Domestic Slave-trade. — This is the most indefensible, as well 
as the most detestable feature in the system of slavery. It will not 
admit of even an attempt at justification. There are many who pro- 
fess to deplore the existence of slavery, who yet consider its abolition 
impracticable, or unjust to the owners of the slaves, or dangerous to 
the community. Others again, will descant largely on the blessings 
and advantages of slavery to those who are favored with the enjoy- 
ment of its benefits, ending with a declaration that their situation, if 
restored to freedom, would be infinitely more deplorable. But none 
of these reasons can be urged in behalf of this shameful traffic. It 
is a guilt and an infamy for which our country has no excuse. If 
her slave population was entailed upon her against her will, and can- 
not now be got rid of, she is at least, under no compulsion to permit 
herself to be disgraced by this infamous traffic. If the state of the 
slaves is a happy one, their happiness cannot possibly be increased 
by their being torn from their homes and friends, manacled and 
driven in gangs across the country, exposed to the gaze and insults 
of an unfeeling rabble, or hurried on board a slave-ship, and conveyed 
they know not whither, save that it is far from all they have ever 
known or loved. If they are unfit for the station of freemen, it does 
not necessarily follow that they should be treated as brutes ; now, 
though there may be dangerous consequences to be feared from their 
emancipation, can the security of the present state of things be in 
any wise increased by goading them to madness with excessive 
cruelty 1 Hard as the lot of the slave is, and ever must be, sfill 
while he is surrounded by those he loves, with the security that this 
blessing, at least, will be spared to him to soothe the darkness of his 
lot, and while the familiar faces and scenery which he has been 
accustomed to gaze on from childhood are still before him, he will 
probably indulge in an apathetic acquiescence with his fate, nor risk 
his present enjoyments for a doubtful future. But he who feels that 



ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER. 98 

his dearest ties of life are broken, never more to be united, and is 
driven by anguish and a sense of injustice, into an utter recklessness of 
his fate, is a fit instrument to plan desperate deeds, and to infuse into 
the bosoms of others a portion of his own spirit. Thus should we 
allow entire validity, which we do not, to all the arguments that are 
urged in favor of the continuance of slavery, no one of them affords 
the slightest plea for this unchristian practice. It is utterly at vari- 
ance with every law of humanity and religion, and in its very existence 
is a curse to the land in which it is tolerated. 

Slave produce. — That, if there were no consumers of slave produce, 
there would be no slaves, is an axiom too self-evident to the meanest 
capacity, to require us to use a single argument in its demonstration. 
But that the class of consumers share equally in the guilt of slavery 
with those who are the more immediate upholders of the system, will 
not probably, by the multitude, be so readily admitted. Even while 
they acknowledge themselves to be the main supporters of this 
scheme of oppression, they would exonerate themselves from any 
portion of its turpitude ; as if it were possible for them to be innocent 
of a crime of which they are wilfully the cause ! Can they employ 
another in the commission of evil, enjoy the advantage of his villany, 
and yet suppose that the stain of iniquity clings only to him who was 
but the agent of their will 1 Were they disinterested reasoners, we 
thin'i such would not be their decision. Their own hands do not, it 
is true, wield the blood-extorting lash, or rivet the fetter, but they 
know that it is done by others, in order to afford at the cheapest rate 
the luxuries which they Avill neither resign, nor make one exertion to 
obtain from the hands of freemen. They have no hesitation in 
branding the trafficker in human flesh with the stigma of shame and 
cruelty, but while they would not for the universe engage personally 
in the exercise of so much barbarity, they will not relinquish one 
single iota of the comforts it procures for them. Is this consistency ? 
Is such fastidiousness the result of humanity ! or has it not rather, if 
fairly examined, its root in mere selfishness ? Their education has 
unfitted them for mingling actively in scenes of cruelty, they would 
sicken and shudder at the sight of v.'antonly shed blood, and the 
agonizing cries of a breaking heart would frighten sleep from their 
pillows, or were like a haunting spirit to their dreams. Is it so vastly 
meritorious, then, to consign to other hands what would be revolting 
to their feelings? Or may such sensibility claim its spring from the 
nobler principles of beneficence and justice, while they unhesitatingly 
receive from the hands of another, that which they have not nerve 
encJugh to obtain for themselves ? Let them remember when they 
execrate the enormities of the slave system, that it is themselves who 
hold out the inducements for their perpetration. Guilty as the slave- 
holder may be, let them not flatter themselves that he alone is guilty. 
To them the criminality and hideousness of slavery are clearly dis- 
cernible. But he is mentally benighted. The bribe which they 
have given him, the unrighteous mammon, hath " perverted his judg- 



94 ELIZABKTH MARGARET CHANDLER. 

merit.'' He is compassed about with the iron bands of prejudice, — 
he fancies that to break the fetters of his slaves would be to insure 
his own ruin. But it is the purchasers of his ill-gotten produce who 
have woven around him the filmy web of prejudice. Let them but 
make it his interest to be just, and his moral perceptions will be 
clear as the daylight. Emancipation will no longer appear to him a 
visionary scheme, ruinous and impracticable. His opinions will be 
grounded on wiser and juster reasoning, and he will make haste to 
render back their liberty to those from whom he has so long withheld 
it. He who clings with so tenacious a grasp to his gathered stores 
of human wealth, while we hate his crime, may claim our pity for his 
self-delusion and his unhappy situation. But what have those to 
advance in behalf of their heartless conduct, who, with the full light 
of conviction around them, obstinately persist to abet him in his error ? 
Nothing, absolutely nothing, beyond the miserable and even criminal 
plea of self-convenience, or a disinclination to encounter a trivial 
portion of salutary self-denial ! And, they who can so lightly weigh 
their own gratification against the intolerable anguish of their sister's 
lot, — who count the sacrifice of a few paltry luxuries, too vast a ran- 
som for the redemption of thousands and tens of thousands of their 
fellow-creatures from a state of servitude and darkness, are the good, 
the amiable, and the gentle of the earth. Such a maze of inconsis- 
tency is the human heart ! We could fling away the pen, and weep 
in very shame and bitterness for the hard-heartedness of our sex. 
One would suppose that the bare knowledge of the terrible price at 
which those cherished comforts have been procured, would cause a 
woman to turn shuddering and loathingly away, as though they were 
infected with a taint of blood. And the curse of blood is upon them ! 
Though the dark red stain may not be there visibly, yet the blood of 
all the many thousands of the slain, who have died amid the horrors 
and loathsomeness of the slave-ship—been hurled by capricious 
cruelty to the yawning wave, or sprang to its bosom in the madness 
of their proud despair — of those who have pined away to death beneath 
the slow tortures of a broken heart, who have perished beneath the 
tortures of inventive tyranny, or on the ignominious gibbet — all this 
lies with a fearful weight upon this most foul and unnatural system, 
and that insatiable thirst for luxury and wealth in which it first origin- 
ated, and by which it is still perpetuated. 

' Think of our country's glory, 

All dimm'd with Afric's tears — 
Her broad flag stain'd and gory 

With the hoarded guilt of years! 

Think of the frantic mother, 

Lamenting for her child, 
Till falling lashes smother 

Her cries of anguish wild ! 

Think of tlie prayers ascending, 

Yet shriek'd, alas ! in vain, 
When heart from heart is rending, 

Ne'er to be joined again. 



*: 



MRS. L. M. SIGOURNET. 95 

Shall we behold, unheeding, 

Life's holiest feelings crush'd ? 
When woman's heart is bleeding, 

Shedl woman's voice be hush'd ? 

Oh, no ! by every blessing 

That Heaven to thee may lend— 
Remember their oppression. 

Forget not, sister, friend. 

E. M. Chandler's Works. 



TO PRUDENCE CRANDALL. 

Heaven bless thee, noble lady. 

In thy purpose, good and high ! 
GKve knowledge to the thirsting mind, 

Light to the asking eye ; 
Unseal the intellectual page, 

For those from whom dark pride, 
With tyrant and unholy hands. 

Would fain its treasures hide. 

Still bear thou up unyielding, 

'Gainst persecution's shock. 
Gentle as woman's self, yet firm 

And moveless as a rock ; 
A thousand spirits yield to thee 

Their gushing sympathies. 
The blessing of a thousand hearts 

Around thy pathway lies. E. M. C. 



MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY. 

We have a goodly clime, 

Broad vales and streams we boast. 
Our mountain frontiers frown subhme, 

Old ocean guards our coast ; 
Suns bless our harvest fair, 

With fervid smile serene, 
But a dark shade is gathering there I- 

What can its blackness mean ? 

We have a birthright proud. 

For our young sons to claim, 
An eagle soaring o'er the cloud, 

In freedom and in fame ; 
We have a scutcheon bright, 

By our dear fathers bought — 
A fearful blot distains its white ! — 

Who hath such evil wrought? 

Our banner o'er the sea 

Looks forth with starry eye, 
Emblazoned, glorious, bold, and free, 

A letter on the sky. 
What hand, with shameful stain, 

Hath marred its heavenly blue ? 
The yoke ! the fetters ! and the chain! 

Say, are these emblems tn e ? 



96 WILLIAM B. TAPPAN. 

This day* doth music rare 

Swell through our nation s bound, 
But Afric's wailing mingles there, 

^ad Heaven doth hear the sound ! 
O God of power ! we turn 

In penitence to thee, 
Bid our loved land the lesson learn — 

To bid the slave be free. 



WILLIAM B. TAPPAN. 

Lift ye my country's banner high. 
And fling abroad its gorgeous sheen ; 

Unroll its stripes upon the sky, 
And let its lovely stars be seen. 

Blood, blood, is on its spangled fold. 
Yet from the battle comes it not ; 

God ! all tiie seas thy channels hold. 
Cannot wash out the guilty spot. 

These glorious stars and stripes that led 

Our lion-hearted fathers on. 
Vailed only to the honored dead — 

Beaming where fields and fame were won : 

These symbols that to kings could tell 
Our young republic's rismg name. 

And speak to falling realms, the knell 
Of glory past, of future shame : 

Dishonor'd shall they be by hands. 
On which a sacrament doth lie ? 

The light that heralded to lands 
Immortal glory — must it die ? 

No ! let the earthquake-utterance be 
From thousand swelling hearts — not so! 

And let one voice from land and sea, 
Return indignant answer — no ! 

Up then ! determine, dare and do, 

What justice claims, what freemen may; 

What frowning heaven demands of you 
While yet its muttering thunders stay ; 

That thou, for ever from this soil 

Bid Slavery's withering blight depart , 

And to the wretch restore the spoil, 

Though thou may'st not the broken heart; 

That thou thy brother from the dust 
Lift up, and speak his spirit free ! 

That millions whom thy crime hath curst, 
May blessings plead on thine and thee. 

Then to the universe wide spread 
Thy glorious stars, without a slain ; 

Bend from your skies, illustrious dead ! 
The world ye won is free again. 

* Fourth of July. 



JORl* PIERFONT — LTDIA HARIA CHILD. 97 



JOHN PIERPONT. 

Cluench, righteoua Grod, the thirst, 
That Congo's sons hath curs'd^ 

The thirst for gold ! 
Shall not thy thunders speak, 
Where Mammon's altars reek. 
Where maids and matrons shrieks, 

Bound, bleeding, sold ? 

Cast down, great God, the fanes, 
That, to unhallowed gains. 

Round us have risen — 
Temples, whose priesthood pore 
Moses and Jesus o'er, 
Then bolt the black man's door. 

The poor man's prison ! 



LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 

In order to show the true aspect of slavery among us, I will state 
distinct propositions, each supported by the evidence of actually 
existing laws. 

1. Slavery is hereditary and perpetual, to the last moment of the 
slave's earthly existence, and to all his descendants, to the latest 
posterity. 

2. The labor of the slave is compulsory and uncompensated ; v/hHe 
the kind of labor, the amount of toil, and the time allowed for rest, 
are dictated solely by the master. No bargain is made, no wages 
given. A pure despotism governs the human brute ; and even his 
covering and provender, both as to quantity and quahly, depend 
entirely on the master's discretion. 

3. The slave being considered a personal chattel, may be sold, or 
pledged, or leased, at the will of his master. He may be exchanged 
for marketable commodities, or taken in execution for the debts, or 
taxes, either of a living, or a deceased master. Sold at auction, 
" either individually, or in lots to suit the purchaser," he may remain 
with his family, or be separated from them for ever. 

4. Slaves can make no contracts, and have no legal right to emy 
property, real or personal. Their own honest earnings, and the lega- 
cies of friends, belong, in point of law, to their masters. 

5. Neither a slave, nor free colored person, can be a witness 
against any white or free man, in a court of justice, however atrocious 
may have been the crimes they have seen him commit : but they may 
give testimony against a fellow-slave, or free colored man, even in 
cases affecting hfe. 

6. The slave may be punished at his master's discretion — without 
trial — without any means of legal redress, — whether his offence be 
real, or imaginary : and the master can transfer the same despotic 
power to any person, or persons, he may choose to appoint. 

13 



98 SARAH M. GRIMKE ANGELINA E. GRIMKE. 

7. The slave is not allowed to resist any free man under any cir- 
cumstances : his only safety consists in the fact that his owner may 
bring suit and recover the price of his body, in case his life is taken, 
or his limbs rendered unfit for labor. 

8. Slaves cannot redeem themselves, or obtain a change of masters, 
though cruel treatment may have rendered such a change necessary 
for their personal safety. 

9. The slave is entirely unprotected in his domestic relations. 

10. The laws greatly obstruct the manumission of slaves, even 
where the master is willing to enfranchise them. 

11. The operation of the laws tends to deprive slaves of religious 
instruction and consolation. 

12. The whole power of the laws is exerted to keep slaves in a 
state of the lowest ignorance. 

13. There is in this country a monstrous inequality of law and 
right. What is a trifling fault in a white man, is considered highly 
criminal in the slave ; the same offences which cost a white man a 
few dollars only, are punished in the negro with death. 

14. The laws operate most oppressively upon free people of color. — 
Appeal in favor of that class of Americans called Africans. 



SARAH M. GRIMKE— ANGELINA E. GRIMKE. 
Reasons for action at the North. 

I. Slavery now exists in the District of Columbia, over which, 
according to the constitution of the United States, congress has 
power " to exercise exclusive legislation in aU cases whatsoever." 

II. Slave-traders in the District of Columbia, by the payment of 
$400 apiece, are licensed by congress to buy and sell American 
citizens, and this " price of blood" is thrown into the coffers of the 
nation. 

III. Northern members of congress are striving to perpetuate 
slavery in the District of Columbia. It was only last year that they 
referred certain petitions and resolutions respecting the abolition of 
slavery in the District to a select committee with instructions to report, 
" That in the opinion of this House, congress ought not in any way 
to interfere with slavery in the District of Columbia." And the 
present congress have treated them with contempt. Even the ex- 
president who so zealously contends for the right of petition, has 
"declared himself adverse to the abolition of slavery in the District." 

IV. In the District of Columbia the prisons which were built with 
northern as well as southern money, are continually thrown open to 
receive innocent men, women, and children, who are lodged in their 
gloomy cells until the slave-trader has made the necessary arrange- 
ments for dragging them into hopeless bondage. " One keeper of 
the jail in Washington stated, that in five years 450 colored persons 
had been lodged there for safe keeping," i. e., until they could be dis- 



SARAH M. GRIMKE ANGELINA E. GRIMKE. 99 

posed of in the course of the slave-trade ; besides nearly 300 who 
had been taken up and lodged there as runaways. In 1834, there 
were at one time, thirteen incarcerated in this prison, who claimed 
that they were entitled to their freedom. 

V. Slavery now exists in the tenitory of Florida, which is under 
the exclusive jurisdiction of congress. 

VI. The inter-state slave-trade, which is productive of an enor- 
mous amount of misery and crime, might be regulated or abolished 
by congress ; for the constitutional power to legislate on this subject 
is vested in that body. 

VII. According to the constitution of the United States, northern 
men are pledged to put down servile insurrections at the South ; their 
physical strength is pledged to support this system of oppression and 
cruelty, heathenism and robbery. 

VIII. Northern votes in congress have admitted seven new slave 
states into the Union since the constitution was adopted. In this way 
northern men have enlarged " the place of the tent of slavery, stretched 
forth the curtains of her habitation, lengthened her cords and strength- 
ened her stakes." 

IX. Conformably to the constitution of the United States, the 
northern states deliver up the fugitive slave into the hands of his 
master. But this is not all ; the colored man who is taken up on 
suspicion that he has no right to his own body, is denied a trial by a 
jury, and is thrown into northern prisons until his claimant is ready to 
return him into abject slavery. And furthermore, Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey have gratuitously passed laws to secure the slaveholder 
his unnatural but legal right to his slave for six months after he has 
voluntarily brought that slave under their jurisdiction. New York 
has been even more obsequious to southern convenience, and extended 
the term to nine months. Indeed, so exceedingly lax are the laws 
of the northern states with regard to colored persons, that they are 
constantly liable to be kidnapped. We know that they often are, the 
free as well as the bond, and that many a free citizen of color has 
been stolen and reduced to bondage, and sold on southern vendue 
tables. 

X. Northern churches receive slaveholders to their communion 
tables, and slaveholding ministers into their pulpits, whilst at the same 
time they close their pulpits against anti-slavery ministers, who are 
pleading the cause of the dumb. 

XI. Northern ministers go to the South and close their lips on the 
subject of slavery. They will not preach the truth to the people of 
their charge : many of them become slaveholders, and thus strengthen 
the hands of the oppressor by their examples. 

XII. Northern men go to the South to make their Ibrtunes, they 
frequently become slaveholders, and very often harder masters, than 
those who have been born and bred at the South. 

XIII. Northern men are themselves slaveholders, and in the city 
of New York alone, the merchants hold mortgages on the southern 
plantations and slaves to the amount of $10,000,000. This fact was 



L cf 



100 SARAH M. GRIMKE ANGELINA E. GRIMk/. 

ascertained last spring. And furthermore, a person interested in the 
Texas insurrection, told Judge Jay, that there were two merchants 
in New York, ready to engage in the African slave-trade, to supply 
that country with slaves under the specious name of indented appren- 
tices, if it was wrested from Mexico, Look at the fact that the brig 
Latona of New York, which sailed for St. Thomas, last autumn, was 
afterwards sent to Cuba to be sold as a Guineaman. This vessel 
was the property of a New- York merchant. 

XIV. Northern manufacturers, merchants, and consumers, are 
constantly lending their aid to support the system of slavery, by pur- 
chasing a large amount of the products of the unrequited labor of the 
slave. 

XV. Northern prejudice against color is grinding the colored man 
to the dust in our free states, and this is strengthening the hands of 
the oppressor continually. When the slaveholders hear that the 
colored citizens of the North are not permitted to erect a college at 
New Haven ; that their schools at Canterbury and Canaan are broken 
up ; that they are continually subject to great inconveniences and 
great indignities in travelling from place to place, because the pride 
of northern aristocracy cannot bear a colored person at the same table, 
in the same boat cabin, in the same rail car with the whites, or to sit 
side by side with them even in the temples of God : — when they hear 
that a Presbyterian minister was, at the last anniversary of the alumni 
of Princeton college, actually kicked out of the chapel because he 
wore a darker skin than their own, thinkest thou they cannot discern 
in these things the very same spirit which leads them to degrade and 
brutalize their colored brethren at home 1 

We now feel prepared to present our correspondent with " the defi- 
nite, practicable means by which Northerners can put an end to slavery 
in the South." Let them petition congress unceasingly to abolish 
slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and let them 
vote for no senators and representatives who will not assert the right 
of their constituents to petition, and the duty of congress to receive 
and hear those petitions, and refer them to a committee for solemn 
consideration and judicious action. Let them protest against the use 
of the national prisons for the iniquitous purpose of confining slaves, 
and free people of color taken up on suspicion of being runaways. — 
Let Northerners petition for the abolition of slavery in the territory 
of Florida, and the entire breaking up of the inter-state slave-trade. 
Let them respectfully ask for an alteration in that part of the consti- 
tution by which they are bound to assist the South in quelling servile 
insurrections. Let them see to it that they send no man to congress 
who would give his vote to the admission of another slave state into 
the national Union. Let them protest against the injustice and cruelty 
of delivering the fugitive slave back to his master, as being a direct 
infringement of the Divine command. Deut. xxiii, 15, 16. Let 
them petition their different legislatures to grant a jury trial to the 
friendless, helpless runaway, and for the repeal of those laws which 
secure to the slaveholder his legal right to his slave, after he has 



ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. 101 

voluntarily brought him within the verge of their jurisdiction, and for 
the enactment of such laws as will protect the colored man, woman, 
and child, from the fangs of the kidnapper, who is constantly walking 
about in the northern states, seeking whom he may devour. Let the 
northern churches refuse to receive slaveholders at their communion 
tables, or to permit slaveholding ministers to enter their pulpits. Let 
those northern ministers who go to the South " Cry aloud and spare 
not, lift up their voices like a trumpet and show the people their trans- 
gressions, and the house of Jacob their sins ;" — let them refuse to 
countenance the system of slavery by owning slaves themselves. 
Let northern men who go to the South to make their fortunes, see to 
it, that those fortunes are not made out of the unrequited labor of the 
slave. Let northern merchants refuse to recei\e mortgages or take 
slaves, seeing that this is a virtual acknowledgment that man can hold 
man as property. Let them carefully avoid participating in any way 
in the African slave-trade. Let northern manufacturers refuse to 
purchase the cotton for the cultivation of which the laborer has received 
no wages. Let the grocer refuse to buy the sugar and rice of the 
South, so long as " the hire of the laborers who have reaped down 
their fields is kept back by fraud." Let the merchant refuse to 
receive the articles manutactured out of slave-grown cotton, and let 
the consumer refuse to purchase either the rice, sugar, or cotton arti- 
cles, to produce which has cost the slave his unpaid labor, his tears, 
and his blood. Every Northerner may in this way bear a faithful 
testimony against slavery at the South, by withdrawing his pecuniary 
support. 



DECLARATION OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION, 
Assembled at Philadelphia, December 4, 1833. 

The Convention, assembled in the city of Philadelphia, to organize a National 
Anti-Slavery Society, promptly seize the opportunity to promulgate the following 
DECLARATION OP SENTIMENTS, as cherished by them in relation to the 
enslavement of one-sixth portion of the American people. 

More than fifty-seven years have elapsed since a band of patriots convened in 
this place, to devise measures for the deliverance of this country from a foreign yoke. 
The corner stone upon which they founded the Temple of Freedom was broadly 
this — " that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, LIBER,T Y, and the pursuit 
of happiness." At the sound of their trumpet-call, three millions of people rose up 
as from the sleep of death, and rushed to the strife of blood ; deeming it more glo- 
rious to die instantly as freemen, than desirable to hve one hour as slaves. They 
were few in number — poor in resources ; but the honest conviction that Truth, 
Justice, and Right, were on their side, made them invincible. 

We have met together for the achievement of an enterprise, without which, that 
of our fathers is incomplete; and which, for its magnitude, solemnity, and probable 
results upon the destiny of the world, as far transcends theirs, as moral truth does 
physical force. 

In purity of motive, in earnestness of zeal, in decision of purpose, in intrepidity 
of action, in steadfastness of faitli, in sincerity of spirit, we would not be inferior to 
them. 

Their principles led them to wage war against their oppressors, and to spill 
human blood like water, in order to be free. Ours forbid the doing of evil that good 



102 ANTI-SLAVERT CONVENTION. 

may come, and lead us to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of 
all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage ; relying solely upon those which 
are spiritual, and mighty through God to tlie pulling down of strong holds. 

Tlieir measures were physical resistance — the marshalling in arms — the hostile 
array — the mortal encounter. Ours shall be such only as the opposition of moral 
purity to moral corruption — the destruction of error by the potency of truth — the 
overthrow of prejudice by the power of love — and the abolition of slavery by the 
spirit of repentance. 

Their grievances, great as they were, were trifling in comparison with the wrongs 
and sufferings of those for whom we plead. Our fathers were never slaves — never 
bought and sold like cattle — never shut out from the light of knowledge and religion 
— never subjected to the lash of brutal task-masters. 

But those for whose emancipation we are striving, — constituting at the present 
time at least one-sixth part of our countrymen, — are recognised by the law, and 
treated by their fellow beings, as marketable commodities, as goods and chattels, as 
brute beasts ; are plundered daily of the fruits of their toil without redress ; really 
enjoying no constitutional nor legal protection from licentious and murderous out- 
rages upon their persons ; are ruthlessly torn asunder — the tender babe from the 
arms of its frantic mother — the heart-broken wife from her weeping husband — at 
the caprice or pleasure of irresponsible tyrants. For the crime of having a dark 
complexion, they suffer the pangs of hunger, the infliction of stripes, and the igno- 
miny of brutal servitude. They are kept in heathenish darkness by laws expressly 
enacted to make their instruction a criminal ofi^ence. 

These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of more than two millions 
of our people, the proof of which may be found in thousands of indisputable facts, 
and in the laws of the slaveholding states. 

Hence we maintain, — that in view of the civil and religious privileges of this nation, 
the guilt of its oppression is unequalled by any other on the face of the earth ; and, 
therefore, 

That it is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy burden, to break every 
yoke, and to let the oppressed go free. 

We further maintain, — that no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother 
— to hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of merchandise — to keep 
back his liire by fraud — or to brutalize his mind by denjnng him the means of intel- 
lectual, social, and moral improvement. 

The right to enjoy hberty is inahenablc. To invade it, is to usurp the preroga- 
tive of Jehovah. Every man has a right to his own body — to the products of his 
own labor — to the protection of law, and to the common advantages of society. It 
is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject him to servitude. Surely the 
sin is as great to enslave an American as an African. 

Therefore we believe and affirm — That there is no difference, inprinciple, between 
the African slave-trade and American slavery : 

That every American citizen who retains a human being in involuntary bondage 
as his property, is [according to Scripture, Ex. xxi, 16,] a man stealer : 

That the slaves ought instantly to be set free, and brought under the protection 
of law: 

That if they had lived from the time of Pharaoh down to the present period, and 
had been entailed through successive generations, their right to be free could never 
have been alienated, but their claims would have constantly risen in solemnity : 

That all those laws which are now in force, admitting the right of slavery, are 
therefore before God utterly null and void ; being an audacious usurpation of the 
Divine prerosative, a daring infringement on the law of nature, a base overthrow of 
the very foundations of the social compact, a complete extinction of all the relations, 
endearments, and obligations of mankind, and a presumptuous transgression of all 
the holy commandments — and that therefore they ought to be instantly abrogated. 

We further believe and affjiin — That all persons of color who possess the quali- 
fications which are demanded of others, ought to be admitted forthwith to the enjoy- 
ment of the same privileges, and the exercise of the same prerogatives, as others ; 
and that the paths of preferment, of wealth, and of intelligence, should be opened 
as widely to them as to persons of a white complexion. 

We maintain, that no compensation should be give|i to the planters emancipating 
their slaves, 



ANT1-SLA.VERY CONVENTION. 103 

Because it would be a surrender of the great fundamental principle, that man 
cannot hold property in man ; 

Because slavery is a crime, and therefore it is not an article to be 

SOLD ; 

Because the holders of slaves are not the just proprietors of what they claim ; 
freeing the slaves is not depriving them of property, but restoring it to its right 
owners ; it is not wronging the master, but righting the slave — restoring liim to 
himself; ^ 

Because immediate and general emancipation would only destroy nominal, not 
real property : it would not amputate a limb or break a bone of the slaves, but by 
infusing motives into their breasts, would make them doubly valuable to the masters 
as free laborers ; and 

Because, if compensation is to be given at all, it should be given to the outraged 
and guiltless slaves, and not to those who have plundered and abused them. 

We regard as delusive, cruel, and dangerous, any scheme of expatriation which 
pretends to aid, either directly or indirectly, in the emancipation of the slaves, or to 
be a substitute for the immediate and total abolition of slavery. 

We fully and unanimously recognise the sovereignty of each state, to legislate 
exclusively on the subject of the slavery which is tolerated within its hniits ; we con- 
cede that congress, jmder the present national compact, has no right to interfere with 
any of the slave states, in relation to this momentous subject: 

But we maintain that Congress has a right, and is solenmly bound, to suppress 
the domestic slave-trade between the several states, and lo abolish slavery in those 
portions of our territory which the Constitution has placed under its exclusive 
jurisdiction. 

We also maintain that there are, at the present time, the highest obligations rest- 
ing upon the people of the free states, to remove slavery by moral and political 
action, as prescribed in the Constitution of the United States. They are now living 
under a pledge of their tremendous physical force, to fasten the galling fetters of 
tyranny upon the limbs of millions in the southern states ; they are Uable to be 
called at any moment to suppress a general insurrection of the slaves ; they author- 
ize the slave owner to vote for three-fifths of his slaves as property, and thus enable 
him to perpetuate his oppression ; they support a standing army at the South for its 
protection ; and they seize thfe slave vvbo has escaped into then- territories, and send 
him back to be tortured by an enraged master or a brutal driver. This relation to 
slavery is criminal and full of danger: it must be broken up. 

These are our views and principles — these, our designs and measures. With 
entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we plant ourselves upon the 
Declaration of our Independence and the truths of divine revelation as upon the 
Everlasting Rock. 

We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every city, town, and 
village, in our land. 

We shall send forth agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of warning, of 
entreaty, and rebuke. 

We shall circulate, unsparingly and extensively, anti-slavery tracts and periodicals. 

We shall enlist the pulpit and the press in the cause of the suffering and the 
dumb. 

We shall aim at a purification of the Churches from all participation in the guilt 
of slavery. 

We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of slaves, by giving a 
preference to their productions ; and 

We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to speedy 
repentance. 

Our trust for victory is solely in GOD. We may be personally defeated, but our 
principles never. Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously 
triumph. Already a host is coming up to the help of the Lord against tlie mighty, 
and the prospect before us is full of encouragement. 

Submitting this DECLARATION to the candid examination of the people of 
this country, and of the friends of liberty throughout the worid, we hereby affix our 
signatures to it; pledging ourselves that, under the guidance and by the help of 
Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies, consistently with this Declaration of 
our principles, to overthrow this most execrable system of slavery that has ever 



104 CONSTITUTION OF ANTI-SLAVERY 80CIETT. 

been vritnessed upon earth — to deliver our land from its deadliest curse — to wipe 
out the foulest stain which rests upon our national escutcheon — and to secure to 
the colored population of the United States all the rights and privileges which belong 
to them as men, and as Americans — come what may to our persons, our interests, 
or our reputation — whether we live to witness the triumph of liberty, justice, and 
HUMANITY, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great, benevolent, and holy cause. 
Done in Philadelphia, this sixth day of December, A. D., 1833. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

PREAMBLE. 

Whereas the Most High God '' hath made of one blood all nations of men to 
dwell on all the face of the earth," and hath commanded tliem to love their neigh- 
bors as themselves ; and whereas our national existence is based upon this principle, 
as recognised in tiie Declaration of Independence, " that all mankind are created 
equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ;" and whereas, after the 
lapse of nearly sixty years, since the faith and honor of the American people were 
pledged to this avowal, before Almighty God, and the world, nearly one-sixth part 
of the nation are held in bondage by their fellow-citizens ; and whereas slavery is 
contrary to the principles of natural justice, of our republican form of government, 
and of the Christian religion, and is destructive of the prosperity of the country, 
while it is endangering the peace, union and liberties of the States ; and whereas 
we believe it the duty and interest of the masters, immediately to emancipate their 
slaves, and that no scheme of expatriation, either voluntary or by compulsion, can 
remove this great and increasing evil ; and whereas we believe that it is practicable, 
by appeals to the consciences, hearts, and interests of the people, to awaken a 
public sentiment throughout the nation, that will be opposed to the continuance of 
slavery in any part of the republic, and by effecting the speedy abolition of slavery, 
prevent a general convulsion ; and whereas we believe we owe it to the oppressed, 
to oui- fellow-citizens who hold slaves, to our whole country, to posterity, and to 
God, to do all that is lawfully in our power to bring about the extinction of slavery, 
we do hereby agree, with a prayerful reliance on the Divine aid, to form ourselves 
into a society, to be governed by the following 

CONSTITUTION. 

Art. I. — This Society shall be called the American Anti-Slavery Society. 

Art. II. — The object of this Society is the entire abolition of slavery in the United 
States. While it admits that each state in which slavery exists, has, by the Consti- 
tution of the United States, the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its aboUtion 
in said state, it shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments addressed 
to their understandings and consciences, that slaveholding is a heinous crnne in the 
sight of God, and that the duty, safety, and best interests of all concerned, require 
its immediate abandonment, without expatriation. The Society will also endeavor, 
in a constitutional way, to influence Congress to put an end to the domestic slave- 
trade, and to abolish slavery in all those portions of our common country v.hich 
come under its control, especially in the District of Columbia, — and likewise to 
prevent the extension of it to any state that may be hereafter admitted to the Union. 

Art. III. — This Society shall aim to elevate the cliaracter and condition of the 
people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, 
and by removing public prejudice, that thus they may, according to their intellectual 
and moral worth, share an equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges ; 
but this Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating 
their rights by resorting to physical force. 

Art. IV. — Any person who consents to the principles of this Constitution, who 
contributes to the funds of this Society, and is not a slaveholder, may be a member 
of this Society, and shall be entitled to vote at the meetings. 

Art. V. — The officers of this Society shall be a President, Vice Presidents, a 
Secretary of Foreign Correspondence, a Secretary of Domestic Correspondence, a 
Recording Secretary, a Treasurer, and a Ba '■a of Managers, composed of tke 



ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. 105 

above, and not less than ten other members of the Society. They shall be annually 
elected by the members of the Society, and five shall constitute a quorum. 

Art. VI. — The Board of Managers shall annually elect an Executive Committee, 
to consist of not less than rive, nor more than twelve members, vvhicli shall be located 
in New York, who shall have power to enact their own by-laws, fill any vacancy 
in their body, employ agents, determine what compensation shall be paid to agents, 
and to the Corresponding Secretaries, direct the Treasurer in the apphcation of all 
moneys, and call special meetings of the Society. They shall make arrangements 
for all meetings of the Society, make an annual written report of their doings, the 
income, expenditures, and funds of the Society, and shall hold stated meetings, and 
adopt the most energetic measures in tlieir power to advance the objects of the 
Society. 

Art. VII. — The President shall preside at all meetings of the Society, or in his 
absence, one of the Vice Presidents, or, in tlieir absence, a President pro tern. The 
Corresponding Secretaries shall conduct the correspondence of the Society. The 
Recording Secretary shall notify all meetings of the Society, and of the Executive 
Committee, and shall keep records of the same in separate books. The Treasurer 
shall collect the subscriptions, make payments at the direction of the Executive 
Committee, and present a written and audited account to accompany the annual 
report. 

Art. VIII. — The annual meeting of the Society shall be held each year at such 
time and place as the Executive Committee may direct, when the accounts of the 
Treasurer shall be presented, the annual report read, appropriate addresses deliv- 
ered, the Officers chosen, and such other business transacted as shall be deemed 
expedient A special meeting shall always be held on the Tuesday immediately 
preceding the second Thursday in May, in the city of New York, at ten o'clock, 
A. M., provided the annual meeting be not held there at that time. 

Art. IX. — Any Anti-Slavery Society, or association, founded on the same prin- 
ciples, may become auxiliary to this Society. The Ofliccrs of each Auxiliary So- 
ciety shall be ex-officio members of the Parent Institution, and shall be entitled to 
deliberate and vote in the transaction of its concerns. 

Art. X. — This Constitution may be amended, at any annual meeting of the 
Society, by a vote of two-thirds of the members present, provided the amendments 
proposed have been previously submitted, in writing, to the Executive Committee. 



ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. 

In behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society, we solicit the candid attention 
of the public to the following declaration of our principles and objects. Were the 
charges which are brought against us, made only by individuals who are interested 
in the continuance of Slavery, and by such as arc influenced solely by unwortliy 
motives, this address would be unnecessary ; but there are those who merit and 

f)ossess our esteem, who would not voluntarily do us injustice, and who have been 
ed by gross misrepresentations to believe that we arc pursuing measures at variance 
not only with the constitutional rights of the South, but with the precepts of humanity 
and religion. To such we offer the following explanations and assurances. 

1st. We hold that Congress has no more right to abolish slavery in the southern 
states than in the French West India Islands. Of course we desire no national 
lesrislation on the subject. 

'ad. We hold that slavery can only be lawfully abolished by the Legislatures of 
the several states in which it prevails, and that the exercise of any other than moral 
influence, to induce such abolition, is unconstitutional. 

3d. We believe that Congress has the same right to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, that the state governments have within their respective jurisdic- 
tions, and that it is iheir duty to efface so foul a blot from the national escutcheon. 

4th. We believe that American citizens have the right to express and publish 
their opinions of the constitutions, laws, and institutions of any and every state and 
nation under Heaven ; and we mean never to surrender the liberty of speech, of 
the press, or of conscience — blessings we have inherited from our fathers, and which 
we mtend, as far as we are able, to transmit unimpaired to our children. 

5th. We have uniformly deprecated all forcible attempts on the part of the slave* 

14 



106 ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC. 

to recover their liberty. And were it in our power to address them, we would 
exhort them to observe a quiet and peaceful demeanor, and would assure them that 
no insurrectionary movement on their part, would receive from us the slightest £iid 
or countenance. 

6th. We would deplore any servile insurrection, both on account of the calamities 
which would attend it, and on account of the occasion which it might furnish of 
increased severity and oppression. 

7th. We are charged with sending incendiary publications to the South. If by 
the term incendiary is meant publications containing arguments and facts to prove 
slavery to be a moral and political evil, and that duty and policy require its imme- 
diate abolition, the charge is true. But if this term is used to imply publications 
encouraging insurrection, and designed to excite the slaves to break their fetters, 
the charge is utterly and unequivocally false. We beg our fellow-citizens to notice, 
that this charge is made without proof^ and by many who confess that they have 
never read our publications, and that those who make it, offer to the pubUc no evi- 
dence from our writings in support of it. 

Sth. We are accused of sending our publications to the slaves, and it is asserted 
that their tendency is to excite insurrections. Both the charges are false. These 
publications are not intended for the slaves ; and were they able to read them, they 
would find in them no encouragement to insurrection. 

9th. We are accused of employing agents in the slave states to distribute our 
publications. We have never had one such Agent. We have sent no packages of 
our papers to any person in those states tor distribution, except to five respectable 
resident citizens, at their own request. But we have sent, by mail, single papers 
addressed to pubhc officers, editors of newspapers, clergymen, and others. If, 
therefore, our object is to excite the slaves to insurrection, the masters are our 
agents ! 

10th. We believe slavery to be sinful, injurious to this, and to every other country 
in which it prevails ; we believe immediate emancipation to be the duty of every 
slaveholder, and that the immediate abolition of slavery, by those who have the right 
to abolish it, would be safe and wise. These opinions we have freely expressed, 
and we certainly have no intention to refrain from expressing them in future, and 
urging them upon the consciences and hearts of our fellow-citizens who hold slaves 
or apologize for slavery. 

11th. We believe that the education of the poor is required by duty, and by a 
regard for the permanency of our republican institutions. There are thousands and 
tens of thousands of our fellow citizens, even in the free states, sunk in abject po- 
verty, and who, on account of their complexion, are virtually kept in ignorance, and 
whose instruction in certain cases is actually prohibited by law! We are anxious 
to protect the rights, and to promote the virtue and happiness of the colored portion 
of our population, and on this account we have been charged with a design to 
encourage intermarriages between the whites and blacks. This charge has been 
repeatedly, and is now again denied ; while we repeat that the tendency of our 
sentiments is to put an end to the criminal amalgamation that prevails wherever 
slavery exists. 

12th. We are accused of acts that tend to a dissolution of the Union, and even 
of wishing to dissolve it. We have never " calculated the value of the Union," be- 
cause we believe it to be inestimable ; and that the abolition of slavery will remove 
the chief danger of its dissolution ; and one of the many reasons why we cherish, 
and will endeavor to preserve the Constitution, is, that it restrains Congress from 
making any law " abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." 

Such, fellow-citizens, are our principles. Are they unworthy of Republicans and 
of Christians ? Or are they in truth so atrocious, that in order to prevent their 
diffusion, you are yourselves willing to surrender, at tlie dictation of others, the 
invaluable priNnlege of free discussion, the very birthright of Americans ? Will you, 
in order that the abominations of slavery may be concealed from public view, and 
that the capital of your republic may continue to be, as it now is, under the sanction 
of Congress, the great slave mart of the American continent, consent that the 
general government, in acknowledged defiance of the Constitution and laws, shall 
appoint, throughout the length and breadth of your land, ten thousand censors of 
the press, each of whom shall have the right to inspect every document you may 
commit to the post-office, and to suppress every pamphlet and newspaper, whether 



WeW-ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 107 

religious or political, which in his sovereign pleasure he may adjudge to contain an 
incendiary article? Surely we need not remind you, that if you submit to such an 
encroachment on your liberties, the days of our republic are numbered, and that 
although abolitionists may be the first, they will not be the last victims offered at 
the shrme of arbitrary power. 

Arthur Tappan, Presidmt, 

John Rankin, Treasurer. 

William Jay, Sec'ry of Foreign Correspondence. 

Elizur Wright, Jr., Sec^ry of Domes. Cor. 

Abraham L. Cox, M. D., Recording Sec'ry. 

Lewis Tappan, '\ 

Joshua Leavitt, Members of 

Samuel E. Cornish, > the 

Simeon S. Joceltn, Executive Committee. 

Theodore S. Wright, j 

A*ew York, September 3d, 1835. 



NEW-ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

The constitution and the laws have left to us means to spread and to carry into 
effect the doctrine of human rights, of universal liberty. The law, at least, in the 
free states, allows the use of all means, except those which our own conscience 
would forbid ; the constitution of the New-England Anti-Slavery Society permits 
no others than such as are sanctioned by law, humanity and religion. It is enough 
that we have freedom to speak and to print ; freedom peacefully to assemble, and 
associate, to consult, and to petition the government of the Union as well as the 
legislature of every state, and thus by individual and united exertion, to act upon 
the public mind. Thus armed with all the legitimate weapons of truth, we teel 
bound in conscience never to lay them down until the principle that man can hold 
property in man is effaced from our statute books, and held in abhorrence by public 
opinion. After the most careful examination, we are convinced that slavery is unjust 
in itself, and cannot be justified by any laws or circumstances ; that it wars against 
Christianity, and is condemned by the Declaration of our Independence. We are 
convinced that it is injurious to every branch of industry, and more injurious still to 
the mind and character both of the master and the slave. Its existence is the chief 
cause of all our political dissensions ; it tends to unsettle the groundwork of our 
government, so that every institution, founded on the common ground of our Union, 
is like an edifice on a volcanic soil, ever liable to have its foundatiori shaken, and 
the whole structure consumed by subterraneous fire. The danger of a servile and 
a civil war is gaining every year, every day; for the annual increase of the slave 
population is more than sixty thousand ; and every day about two hundred children 
are born into slavery. As the more northern of the slave states, seeing the advan- 
tages of free labor, dispose of their slaves in a more southern market, and by degrees 
abolish servitude, the whole slave population, and with it the danger of a terrible 
revolution, are crowded together in the more southern states. Under all these 
threatening circumstances, what have the southern states, what has congress done, 
to avert the impending calamity from the Union ? Congress, which has full and 
exclusive power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and in the territories, 
and to abolish the domestic as well as the foreign slave trade, shrinks from touching 
the subject. The fear of instant difficulties to be encountered, overcomes the more 
patriotic fear of the ever increasing evils engendered by improvident delay, which 
reserves to our descendants, if we should escape them, the inevitable consequences 
of our own culpable neglect. 

And what has been done in the slavcholding states to prepare the great change, 
from a corrupt to a sound and vigorous state of society ? There are, indeed, benevo- 
lent individuals endeavoring to elevate their slaves by oral instruction, and by 
allowing them to cultivate portions of land for the joint profit of the master and the 
laborers. But the law and the general practice, so far from endeavoring to dimirush, 



108 NEW-ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. 

are calculated rather to increase the evil in order to render it more secure, to imbrote 
the slave more and more, and extinguish in him every aspiration and pretension to 
be a man. Hence the laws against teaching a slave have become more numerous, 
and the penalties more severe, particularly in those states in which the colored 
population is continually gaining upon the white. They refuse to free the slaves 
on the ground of their not being fitted for the proper use of freedom ; and they 
refuse to prepare them for it, because the preparatory course would induce them to 
throw off the yoke instantly. 

In this hopeless state of tilings, a few individuals, deeply impressed with the great 
and increasing oil of slavery, have thought it their duty to unite their efforts to 
undeceive the public mind, to rouse the fortunate heirs of freedom to a sense of their 
own obligation to extend and secure the blessings they possess. They saw that 
the most powerful men in the nation were inactive, either because the magnitude of 
the evil led them to doubt the possibility of finding an adequate remedy, or because 
they feared to disturb the political or commercial connexions between the North and 
the South, or because they were prejudiced themselves;, or thought it a hopeless 
attempt to conquer the prejudice of others. — The disinterested devotion of the few 
who went forth to prepare the way for the gospel of universal freedom by teaching 
that slavery is a sin, of which all the people of this country are more or less guilty, 
and ought immediately to repent and to reform — the generous efforts of a few ardent 
minds have kindled the philanthropic sympathies of many. 

The hostility, and still more the indifference with which the sentiments of the first 
champions of immediate abolition, were received by the majority of influential men 
in tills country, may have betrayed some of them occasionally into unguarded and 
intemperate expressions. Still, the people at large begin to feel that the object, as 
well as the motives, of the friends of the oppressed are right ; and as soon as the 
conviction of a good cause has once unsealed the deep fountains of the heart, and 
has engaged the energies of a free people, it is as vain to attempt to check or divert 
their onward course, as to coax or force Niagara to roll back its mighty waters from 
Lake Ontario to Erie. 

But the dissemination of Anti-Slavery sentiments, it is said, will be productive of 
a servile and civil war, and terminate in the dissolution of the Union. Now if there 
is any thing in the theory of government that can be considered as an unquestiona- 
ble truth, it is the principle that free discussion of every thing that concerns the con- 
stitution and government, is the indispensable condition, the conservative principle 
of every republic. The constitution of our country has fully recognised this con- 
servative principle, in ordaining that no law shall be enacted "abridging the freedom 
of speech or of the pressJ" And what more have abolitionists done, what else do 
they aim at, than free discussion of a part of our social system? To collect and 
disseminate correct information, to argue, to answer objections, and to advise — 
these, and no other means, are authorized by the constitution of any Anti-Slavery 
Society in the United .States. However strongly and urgently the sin and misery 
of servitude have been set forth in the writings that have appeared with the sanction 
of these Societies, yet they have never countenanced, but always most earnestly 
disapproved the use of force, and the desperate recourse to insurrection. They 
have appealed to the conscience and the self-interest both of the slaveholder and 
the slave ; and on the ground of religion as well as worldly prudence, they have 
urged the masters to give up of their own accord, their despotic power, and the 
slaves to be subject to their masters, with a religious trust that the voice of reason 
and Christianity will ere long overcome the partiahty of the law which makes the 
enjo3'ment of the rights of man to depend on the color of his skin. 

You who discern the signs of the time, and are guided by them — do you remem- 
ber how your forefathers left their father-land, to seek liberty among strangers and 
savages ? Do you remember how the sons of the Pilgrims rather ventured their 
lives and their all in desperate fight ; than consent to pay a paltry tax, because 
imposed by unlawful authority? Did not your fathers sign the Declaration of 
Independence and human liberty? And did not the same spirit that gave you 
strength to overcome the bands of oppressors and mercenaries in your devoted 
land — follow the fugitives to their own homes, and wake the nations of the old 
world ? France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, England, have felt the touch of 
the redeeming angel. A spirit of keen inquiry is going through the world, to ex- 
amine every creed and every charter ; it does "not believe in the " divine right of 



OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. 109 

kings;" it will not pass over the flaw, the fatal defect in the title of a state, that 
under the specious name of a republic uses the authority of the law and the sword 
of justice, to seal and secure the oppression of more than one-sixth of its inhabitants. 
The world has heard the tocsin of ti-uth, and is awaking. Man is felt to be man, 
whether European prejudice frown upon him on account of his station, or American 
prejudice because of his color. Europe, which had rekindled the extinguished lamp 
of liberty at the altar of our revolutions still nourishes the holy fire ; England goes 
before us as a torch-bearer, leading the way to the liberation of mankind. The 
despotism which our forefathers could not be ir in their native country, is expiring, 
and the sword of justice in her reformed hands, has applied its exterminating cdg6 
to slavery. Shall the United States, the free United States, which could not bear 
the bonds of a King, cradle the bondage which a king is abolishing ? Shall a 
republic be less free than a monarchy ? Shall we, in the vigor and buoyancy of 
our manhood, be less energetic in righteousness than a kingdom in its age? 

You to whom the destinies of this country are committed, Americans, patriots in 
public and private life, on you it depends to prove, whether your liberty is the fruit 
of your determined choice or of a fortunate accident. If you are republicans, not by 
birth only, but from principle, then let the avenues, all the avenues of light and 
liberty, of truth and love, be opened wide to every soul within the nation — that the 
bitterest curse of millions may no longer be, that they were born and bred in " the 
land of the free and the home of the brave. " 

Charles Follen, 
Ctrds Pitt Grosvenor, 
John G. Whittier, 
D. Pheips, 
Joshua V. Himes, 

Address of J^no- England Anti-Slavery Society, 1834* 



Committee. 



OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. 

Declaration of Sentiment. 

The undersigned, citizens of the state of Ohio, having assembled in convention 
for the purpose of organizing a State Anti-Slavery Society, avail themselves of the 
opportunity thus afforded, to make an exposition of their sentiments upon the sub- 
ject of slavery, and the means which they deem necessary for its removal. 

1st. We believe slavery to be a sin — always, everywhere, and only, sin — sin, in 
itself, apart iiom its occasional rigors incidental to its administration, and from all 
those perils, liabilities and positive inflictions, to which its victims are continually 
exposed— sin, in the nature of the act which creates it, and in the elements which 
constitute it — sin, because it converts persons into things, makes men property, 
God's image merchandise ; because it forbids men to use themselves for the ad- 
vancement of their own well-being, and turns them into mere instruments, to be 
used by others, solely for the benefit of the users ; because it constitutes one man the 
owner of the body, soul and spirit of other men — gives him power and permission to 
make his own pecuniary profit the great end of their being, thus striking them out 
of existence as beings possessing rights and susceptibilities of happiness, and forcing 
them to exist merely as appendages to his own existence. In other words, because 
slavery holds and uses men, as mere means for the accomplishment of ends, of which 
ends their own interests are not a part — thus annihilating the sacred and eternal 
distinction between a person and a thing — a distinction proclaimed an axiom by all 
human consciousness — a distinction created by God, crowned with glory and honor 
in the attributes of intelligence, mo-ality, accountability and immortal existence, and 
commended to the homage of universal mind by tlie concurrent testimony of nature, 
conscience, providence and revelation, by the blood of atonement and the sanctions 
of eternit}'. This distinction, authenticated by the seal of Deity, and in its own 
nature effaceless and immutabl?, slavery contemns, disannuls, and tramples unc<T 
foot. This is its fundamental element — its vital, constituent principle — that which 
makes it a sin in itself, under whatever modification existing. All the incidental 



110 OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. 

effects of the system flow spontaneously from this fountain head. The constant 
exposure of slaves to outrage, and the actual inflictions which they experience in 
innumerable forms, all result legitimately from this principle assumed in the theory, 
and embodied in the practice of slaveholding. What is that but a sin, which sinks 
to the level of brutes, beings ranked and registered by God a little lower than the 
angels — wrests from their rightful owners the legacies bequeathed them — inaliena- 
ble birthright endowments exchanged for no equivalent, unsurrendered by volition 
and unforfeited by crime — breaks open the sanctuary of human rights, and makes 
its sacred things common plunder — driving to the shambles Jehovah's image, herded 
with four-footed beasts and creeping things, and bartering for vile dust the purchase 
of a Redeemer's blood, and the living members of his body? What is that but a 
sin, which derides the sanctity with which God has invested domestic relations — 
annihilates marriage — makes void parental authority — nullifies fihal obligation — 
invites the violation of chastity, by denying it legal protection, thus bidding god- 
speed to lust as it riots at noonday, glorying in the immunities of law ? What is 
that but a sin, which stamps as crime obedience to the command, "Search the 
scriptures" — repeals the law of love — abrogates the golden rule — exacts labor with- 
out recompense^authorizes the forcible sunderings of kindred, and cuts off'for ever 
from the pursuit of happiness? What is that but a sin, which embargoes the ac- 
quisition of knowledge by the terror of penalties — eclipses intellect — stifles the 
native instincts of the heart — precipitates in death damps the upward aspirations of 
the spirit — startles its victims with present perils — peoples the future with appre- 
hended horrors — palsies the moral sense, whelms hope in despair, and kills the soul ? 

2d. The influence of slavery upon slaveholders and the slave states, are an 
abiding sense of insecurity and dread ; the press cowering under a censorship ; 
freedom of speech struck dumb by proscription ; a standing army of patrols to awe 
down insurrection ; the mechanic arts and all vigorous enterprise crushed under an 
incubus ; a thriftless agriculture, smiting the land with barrenness and decay ; 
industry held up to scorn ; idleness a badge of dignity ; profligacy no barrier to 
favor; lust emboldened by impunity; concubinage encouraged by premium, the 
high price of the mixed race operating as a bounty upon amalgamation ; prodigality, 
in lavishing upon the rich the plundered earnings of the poor, accounted high-souled 
generosity; revenge regarded as the refinement of honor; aristocracy entitled re- 
publicanism, and despotism chivalry ; sympath}' deadened by scenes of cruelty 
rendered familiar; female amiableness transformed into fury by habits of despotic 
sway ; conscience smothered by its own unheeded monitions ; manhood eff"eminated 
by loose-reined indulgence, and a pervading degeneracy of morals and manners, 
resulting from a state of society where power has no restraint, and the weak have 
none to succor. 

3d. Slavery has framed and incorporated into the very structure of society, a 
system of antagonist relations, fomenting jealousies between diflerent sections, 
distracting our public councils with the conflict of warring interests, weakening our 
national energies, and imminently jeoparding our national existence. It has dese- 
crated our federal city, smitten with its lepros)', our national temple, turned its 
sacred courts into human shambles, and provided seats for them that sell men. It 
is at war with the genius of our government, and divides it against itself. It scoffs 
at our national Declaration, brands us with hypocrisy before the nations, paralyzes 
the power of our free institutions at home, makes them a hissing and a by-word 
abroad, and shouts our shame in tlie ears of the world. 

4th. ^Vhat are the blessings that slavery has conferred upon the Church, in return 
for its Christian baptism and its hearty welcome to the communion of the saints? 
It revokes the co;i;aiand of her Lord — ''Go ye into all the worid, and preach the 
gospel to every creature." — It. builds anew, and sanctifies, the heathen barrier of 
caste, and while her prayers and her alms traverse oceans to find heathen in the 
ends of the earth, it shuts up her bowels against the heathen at her own door, and 
of her own creation ; and, as if to make the Church the derision of scoffers, it grants 
her special indulgence to make heathen at home for her own benefit, provided, by 
way of penance, .she contributes a tithe of the profit for the conversion of heathen 
abroad. It makes her sacrifices a vain oblation, her Redeemer the minister of sin, 
terrible things in righteousness the answer to her prayers, and canopies the heavens 
above her with portents of coming judgments, which now for a long time linger not. 
It accounts her shepherds blameless as they traffic in the lambs of the flock, while 



OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION. Ill 

round about Zion, lamentation and wailing mingle with her songs, the daughters 
of Jerusalem weeping for their children, and refusing to be comforted because they 
are not. 

This is slavei-y — slavery as it exists to-day, sheltered under the wings of our 
national eagle, republican law its protector, republican equality its advocate, repub- 
lican morality its patron, freedom its body guard, the Church its city of refuge, and 
the sanctuary of God and the very horns of the altar its inviolable asylum. 

Against tliis whole system, in itself and in its appendages, in its intrinsic princi- 
oles and in its external relations, we do with one accord, in the name of humanity and 
eternal right, record our utter detestation, and enter our solemn protest. Slavery 
being sin, we maintain that it is the duty of all who perpetrate it, immediately to 
cease ; in other words, that immediate emancipation is the sacred right of the slaves, 
and thfe imperative duty of their masters. 

By immediate emancipation, we do not mean that the slaves shall be deprived of 
employment, and turned loose to roam as vagabonds. We do not mean that they 
shall immediately be put in possession of aU political privileges, any more than 
foreigners before naturalization, or native citizens not qualified to vote ; nor that 
they shall be expelled from their native country as the price and condition of their 
freedom. But we do mean that, instead of being under the unlimited control of a 
few irresponsible masters, they shall receive the protection of law ; tliat they shall 
be emplo3'ed as free laborers, fairly compensated and protected in their earnings ; 
that they shall have secured to them the right to obtain secular and religious knowl- 
edge, and to worship God according to his word. 

We maintain that the slaves belong to tliemselvcs ; that they have a right to their 
own bodies and minds, and to their own earnings; that husbands have a right to 
their wives, and wives to their husbands ; that parents have a right to their children, 
and children to their parents ; and that he who plunders them of these rights com- 
mits high-handed robbery, and is sacredly bound at once and utterly to cease. 

We maintain that every master ought immediately to stop buying and selling 
men, women and children — immediately to stop holding and using them as property 
— immediately to stop robbing them of inalienable rights which they have never 
forfeited. In a word, we say to the master, it is your duty to emancipate your slave 
immediately, that is, to stop taking away from the slave those things which belong 
to him, and to leave him unmolested in the possession of his body and soul, his 
earnings, his wife and his children, as you are in the possession of your body and 
soul, your earnings, your wife and children. 

PLAN OF OPERATION. 

We shall seek to effect the destruction of slavery, not by exciting discontent in 
the minds of the slaves, not by instigating outrage, not by the physical force of the 
free states, not by the interference of congress with state rights ; but we shall seek 
to effect its overthrow by ceaseless proclamation of the truth upon the whole sub- 
ject — by urging upon slaveholders, and tiie entire community, the flagrant enorniity 
of slavery as a sin against God and man — by demonstrating the safety of immediate 
emancipation to the persons and property of the masters, to the interests of the slaves 
and the welflirc of the community — from the laws of mind, the history of emancipa- 
tion, and the indissoluble connexion between duty and safety — by presenting facts, 
arguments, and the results of experiment, establishing the superioiity of free over 
slave labor, and the pecuniary advantages of emancipation to the master — by cor- 
recting the public sentiment of the free states, which now sustains and sanctions the 
system — by concentrating its rectified power upon the conscience of the slaveholder 
— by promoting the observance of the monthly concert of prayer for the abolition of 
slavery throughout the world, that by a union of faith and works, we may bring 
our tithes into the storehouse, and prove therewith the " God of the oppressed." 

Robert Stewart, Elizur Wright, Jr. 

William Keys, Levi Whipple, 

Nathan Galbraith, William Dickey, 

Committee. 



112 ROBERT J. BRECKENRIDGE. 



ROBERT J. BRECKENRIDGE. 

What, then, is slavery ? for the question relates to the action of 
certain principles on it, and to its probable and proper results ; what 
is slavery as it exists among us ? We reply, it is that condition en- 
forced by the laws of one-half the states of this confederacy, in which 
one portion of the community, called masters, is allowed such power 
over another portion called slaves ; as, 

1. To deprive them of the entire earnings of their own labor, ex- 
cept only so much as is necessary to continue labor itself, by con- 
tinuing healthful existence, thus committing clear robbery ; 

2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal concubinage, by 
denying to them the civil rights of marriage ; thus breaking up the 
dearest relations of life, and encomaging universal prostitution ; 

3. To deprive them of the means and opportunities of moral and 
intellectual culture, in many states making it a high penal offence to 
teach them to read ; thus perpetuating whatever of evil there is that 
proceeds from ignorance ; 

4. To set up between parents and their children an authority higher 
than the impulse of nature and the laws of God ; which breaks up 
the authority of the father over his own offspring, and at pleasure 
separates the mother at a returnless distance irom her child ; thus 
abrogating' the clearest laws of nature : thus outraging all decency 
and justice, and degrading and oppressing thousands upon thousands 
of beings created like themselves in the image of the Most High 
God! 

This is slavery as it is daily exhibited in every slave state. This 
is that " dreadful but unavoidable necessity," for which you may hear 
so many mouths uttering excuses, in all parts of the land. And is it 
really so 1 If indeed it be ; if that " necessity" which tolerates this 
condition be really " unavoidable," in any such sense, that we are 
constrained for one moment, to put off the course of conduct which 
shall most certainly and most effectually subvert a system which is 
utterly indefensible on every correct human principle, and utterly 
abhorrent from every law of God, — then, indeed, let Ichabod be 
graven in letters of terrific light upon our country ! For God can no 
more sanction such perpetual wrong, than he can cease to be faithful 
to his own throne. 

He who is higher than the highest, will, in His own good time and 
way, break the rod of the oppressor and let all the oppressed go free. 
He has indeed commanded servants to be obedient to their masters ; 
and it is their bounden duty to be so. We ask not now, what the 
servants were, nor who the masters were. It is enough that all 
masters are commanded to " give unto their servants that which is 
just and equal ;" and to what feature of slavery may that description 
apply? Just and equal ! what care I, whether my pockets are picked, 
or the proceeds of my labor are taken from me ? What matters it 
whether my horse is stolen, or the value of him in my labor be taken 



FRANCIS WAYLAND ALONZO POTTER. 113 

from me ? Do we talk of violating the rights of masters, and depriv- 
ing them of their property in their slaves ? And will some one tell 
us, if there be any thing in which a man has, or can have, so perfect 
a right of property, as in his own limbs, bones, and sinews 1 Out 
upon such folly ! The man who cannot see that involuntary domestic 
slavery, as it exists among us, is founded upon the principle of taking 
by force that which is another's, has simply no moral sense. 

We utter but the common sentiment of mankind when we say, 
none ever continue slaves a moment after they are conscious of their 
ability to retrieve their freedom. The constant tendency for fifty 
years has been to accumulate the black population upon the southern 
states ; already in some of them the blacks exceed the whites, and in 
most of them increased above the increase of the whites in the same 
states, with a ratio that is absolutely startling ; [the annual increase 
in the United States is sixty thousand ;] the slave population could 
bring into action a larger proportion of efficient men, perfectly inured 
to hardships, to the climate, and privations, than any other population 
in the world ; and they have in distant sections, and on various occa- 
sions, manifested already a desperate purpose to shake off the yoke. 
In such an event we ask not any heart to decide where would human 
sympathy and earthly glory stand ; we ask not in the fearful words 
of Jefferson, what attribute of Jehovah would allow him to take part 
with us ; we ask only — and the answer settles the argument — which 
is like to be the stronger side 1 

Nature, and reason, and religion unite in their hostility to this 
system of folly and crime. How it will end, time only can reveal ; 
but the light of heaven is not clearer than that it must end. — African 
Repository, Jan, 1834. 



FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. By 
presenting objects on whom passion can be satisfied without resistance 
and without redress, it cultivates in the master, pride, anger, cruelty, 
selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to subject 
his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish in him 
all moral distinction, and thus fosters in him, lying, deceit, hypocrisy, 
dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to minister to the 
appetite of his master. — Moral Science. 



ALONZO POTTER. 

Brethren, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 
This is the argument on which I would rely, in asking your charity 
this evening. The neglected and ill-fated race for whom I plead, 

15 



114 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 

are brethren with us of one family. The hand of the Creator may 
have imprinted on their features, a hue and complexion less delicate 
than ours. Man's rapacity may have torn them from their native 
land, and reduced them to the condition of slaves and menials here. 
And weighed down by oppression, bereft of hope, and having none to 
care for their souls, they may, too otten, have sunk into vice and 
debasement. But, my friends, standing in this holy place — in his 
immediate presence, who has made of one blood all the nations of 
the earth, and given his Son to be a ransom for the inhabitants of 
every one alike ; I can listen to no such facts as an excuse for apathy 
or avarice. If this unfortunate people have a physical nature less 
perfect than ours, God forbid that this, their misfortune, should be 
imputed to them as their crime. Still they have all the attributes of 
men — " the same organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions. 
They are fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, sub- 
ject to the same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter 
and summer," that the white man is. And if degraded or depraved, 
as is so often alleged in extenuation of our neglect, ought that to 
deprive them of our commiseration? Such reasoning might have 
befitted the lips of the haughty pharisee ; it might well have comported 
with his character to say to the poor publican, stand off, for I am 
holier than thou ! to boast even in the temple his fancied superiority, 
and to shut up the bowels of his compassion from him. But in their 
mouths who profess to be disciples of a Saviour, who was emphati- 
cally the friend of sinners — who went about doing good, especially 
to the forsaken and the guilty, how must such an argument seem ? 
And how, above all, would it seem if we were standing before Christ 
in judgment ? Yes ; what would be his reply, if when this same 
Saviour says, " I was naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in 
prison and ye visited me not," — we were to answer, " when saw we 
thee naked, or sick, or in prison, and ministered not to thee?" We 
could not discern thy form in the person of a poor, degraded negro. 
We could not sympathise with thy wants, disguised as they were 
beneath a sable skin, and an out-cast life. Oh ! at such a plea, how 
would that eye which once " melted with pity over doomed Salem," 
kindle with wrath, and that bosom which gave its last thoughts to his 
murderers, and spent its last strength in a prayer for their forgiveness, 
how would it swell with righteous indignation? — Discourse before the 
African School Society, Schenectady N. Y. 



WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 

Slavery strips man of the fundamental right to inquire into, consult, 
and seek his own happiness. His powers belong to another, and for 
another they must be used. He must form no plans, engage in no 
enterprises, for bettering his condition. Whatever be his capacities, 
however equal to great improvements of his lot, he is chained for life 



WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 115 

by another's will to the same unvaried toil. He is forbidden to do 
tor himself or others the work, for which God stamped him with his 
own image, and endowed him with his own best gifts. Again, the 
slave is stripped of the right to acquire property. Being himself 
owned, his earnings belong to another. He can possess nothing but 
by favor. That right on which the development of men's powers so 
much depends, the right to make accumulations, to gain exclusive 
possessions by honest industry, is withheld. " The slave can acquire 
nothing," says one of the slave-codes, " but what must belong to his 
master ;" and however this definition, which moves the indignation 
of the free, may be mitigated by favor, the spirit of it enters into the 
very essence of slavery. Again, the slave is stripped of his right to 
his wife and children. They belong lo another, and may be torn 
from him, one and all, at any moment, at his master's pleasure. 
Again, the slave is stripped of the right to the culture of his rational 
powers. He is in some cases deprived by law of instruction, which 
is placed within his reach by the improvements of society and the 
philanthropy of the age. He is not allowed to toil, that his children 
may enjoy a better education than himself. The most sacred right 
of human nature, that of developing his best faculties, is denied. 
Even should it be granted, it would be conceded as a favor, and 
might at any moment be withheld by the capricious will of another. 
Again, the slave is deprived of the right of self-defence. No injury 
from a white man is he sufiered to repel, nor can he seek redress 
from the laws of his country. If accumulated insult and wrong 
provoke him to the slightest retaliation, this effort for self-protection, 
allowed and commended to others, is a crime for which he must pay 
a fearful penalty. Again, the slave is stripped of the right to be 
exempted from all harm except for wrong-doing. He is subjected 
to the lash, by those whom he has never consented to serve, and 
whose claim to him as property we have seen to be an usurpation ; 
and this power of punishment, which, if justly claimed, should be 
exercised with a fearful care, is often delegated to men in whose 
hands there is a moral certainty of its abuse. 

With the free we are to plead his cause. And this is peculiarly 
our duty, because we have bound ourselves to resist his efforts for 
his own emancipation. We sufTer him to do nothing for himself. 
The more, then, should be done for him. Our physical power is 
pledged against him in case of revolt. Then our moral power should 
be exerted for his relief^. His weakness, which we increase, gives 
him a claim to the only aid we can afford, to our moral sympathy, to 
the free and faithful exposition of his wrongs. As men, as Christians, 
as citizens, we have duties to the slave, as well as to every other 
member of the community. On this point we have no liberty. The 
eternal law binds us to take the side of the injured ; and this law is 
peculiarly obligatory, when we forbid him to lift an arm in his own 
defence. 

Let it not be said that we can do nothing for the slave. We can 
do much. We have a power mightier than armies, the povrej- of 



116 WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 

truth, of principle, of virtue, of right, of religion, of love. We have 
a power, which is growing with every advance of civilization, before 
which the slave-trade has fallen, which is mitigating the sternest 
despotisms, which is spreading education through all ranks of society, 
which is bearing Christianity to the ends of the earth, which carries 
in itself the pledge of destruction to every institution which debases 
humanity. Who can measure the power of Christian philanthropy, 
of enhghtened goodness, pouring itself forth in prayers and persua- 
sions, from the press and pulpit, from the lips and hearts of devoted 
men, and more and more binding together the wise and good in the 
cause of their race ? All other powers may fail. This must triumph. 
It is leagued with God's omnipotence. 

I am aware that it will be replied to the views now given of slavery, 
that persons living at a distance from it cannot comprehend it, that 
its true character can be learned only from those, who know it prac- 
tically, and are familiar with its operations. To this I will not reply, 
that I have seen it near at hand. It is sufficient to reply, that men 
may lose the power of seeing an object fairly, by being too near as 
well as by being too remote. The slaveholder is too familiar with 
slavery to understand it. To be educated in injustice, is almost 
necessarily to be blinded by it more or less. To exercise usurped 
power from birth, is the surest way to look upon it as a right and a 
good. The slaveholder tells us that he only can instruct us about 
slavery. But suppose that we wished to learn the true character of 
despotism ; should we go to the palace and take the despot as our 
teacher ? Should we pay much heed to his assurance, that he alone 
could understand the character of absolute power, and that we in a 
republic could know nothing of the condition of men subjected to 
irresponsible will ? 

No man who seriously considers what human nature is, and what 
it was made for, can think of setting up a claim to a fellow-creature. 
What I own a spiritual being, a being made to know and adore God, 
and who is to outlive the sun and stars ! W hat, chain to our lowest 
uses a being made for truth and virtue ! Convert into a brute instru- 
ment that intelligent nature, on which the idea of duty has dawned, 
and which is a nobler type of God than all outward creation ! Should 
we not deem it a wrong which no punishment could expiate, were 
one of our children seized as property, and driven by the whip to 
toil? And shall God's child, dearer to him than an only son to a 
human parent, be thus degraded 1 Every thing else may be owned 
in the universe ; but a moral rational being cannot be property. 
Suns and stars may be owned, but not the lowest spirit. Touch any 
thing but this. Lay not your hand on God's rational offspring. 
The whole spiritual world cries out. Forbear ! The highest intelli- 
gences recognise their own nature, their own rights, in the humblest 
human being. By that priceless, immortal spirit which dwells in 
him, by that likeness of God which he wears, tread him not in the 
dust, confound him not with the brute. 

A human being cannot rightfully be held and used as property. 



vrlLLIAM E. CHANNING. 117 

No legislation, not that of all countries or worlds, could make him 
so. Let this be laid down, as a first, fundamental truth. Let us 
hold it fast, as a most sacred, precious truth. Let us hold it fast 
against all customs, all laws, all rank, wealth, and power. Let it be 
armed with the whole authority of the civilized and Christian world. 

I have taken it for granted that no reader would be so wanting in 
moral discrimination and moral feeling, as to urge that men may 
rightfully be seized and held as property, because various governments 
have so ordained. What ! is human legislation the measure of right ? 
Are God's laws to be repealed by man's ? Can government do no 
wrong? What is the history of human governments but a record of 
wrongs 1 How much does the progress of civilization consist in the 
substitution of just and humane, for barbarous and oppressive laws 1 
Government, indeed, has ordained slavery, and to government the 
individual is in no case to offer resistance. But criminal legislation 
ought to be freely and earnestly exposed. Injustice is never so 
terrible, and never so corrupting, as when armed with the sanctions 
of law. The authority of government, instead of being a reason for 
silence under wrongs, is a reason for protesting against wrong with 
the undivided energy of argument, entreaty, and solemn admonition. 
♦ + * + * * . 

There is, however, there must be, in slaveholding communities a 
large class which cannot be too severely condemned. There are 
many we fear, very many, who hold their fellow-creatures in bondage, 
from selfish, base motives. They hold the slave for gain, whether 
justly or unjustly they neither ask nor care. They cling to him as 
property, and have no faith in the principles which will diminish a 
man's wealth. They hold him, not for his own goocJ or the safety of 
the state, but with precisely the same views with which they hold a 
laboring horse, that is, for the profit which they can wring from him. 
They will not hear a word of his wrongs ; for, wronged or not, they 
will not let him go. He is their property, and they mean not to be 
poor for righteousness' sake. Such a class there undoubtedly is 
among slaveholders ; how large their own consciences must deter 
mine. We are sure of it ; for under such circumstances human 
nature will and must come to this mournful result. Now, to men of 
this spirit, the explanations we have made do in no degree apply. 
Such men ought to tremble before the rebukes of outraged humanity 
and indignant virtue. Slavery, upheld for gain, is a great crime. 
He, who has nothing to urge against emancipation, but that it will 
make him poorer, is bound to immediate emancipation. He has no 
excuse for wresting from his brethren their rights. The plea of 
benefit to the slave and the state avails him nothing. He extorts, by 
the lash, that labor to which he has no claim, through a base selfish- 
ness. Every morsel of food, thus forced from the injured, ought to 
be bitterer than gall. His gold is cankered. The sweat of the 
slave taints the luxuries for which it streams. Better were it for the 
selfish wrong doer of whom I speak, to live as the slave, to clothe 
himself in the slave's raiment, to eat the slave's coarse food, t<? till 



118 JAMES G. BIRNET. 

his fields with his own hands, than to pamper himself by day, and 
pillow his head on down at night, at the cost of a wantonly injured 
fellow-creature. 

I know it will be said, " You would make us poor." Be poor, 
then, and thank God for your honest poverty. Better be poor than 
unjust. Better beg than steal. Better live in an almshouse, better 
die than trample on a fellow-creature and reduce him to a brute, for 
selfish gratification. What ! have we yet to learn that " it profits us 
nothing to gain the whole world, and lose our souls?" 

Let it not be replied, in scorn, that we of the North, notorious for 
love of money, and given to selfish calculations, are not the people to 
call others to resign their wealth. I have no desire to shield the 
North. V\'e have, without doubt, a great multitude, who, were they 
slaveholders, would sooner die than relax their iron grasp, than yield 
their property in men to justice and the commands of God. We 
have those who would fight against abolition, if by this measure the 
profit of their intercourse with the South should be materially impaired. 
The present excitement among us is, in part, the working of mer- 
cenary principles. But because the North joins hands with the 
South, shall iniquity go unpunished or unrebuked 1 Can the league 
of the wicked, the revolt of worlds, repeal the everlasting law of 
heaven and earth 1 Has God's throne fallen before Mammon's ? 
Must duty find no voice, no organ, because corruption is universally 
diffused ? Is not this a fresh motive to solemn warning, that, every- 
where northward and south\\ ard, the rights of human beings are held 
so cheap, in comparison with worldly gain 1 



JAMES G. BIRNEY. 

T. It would, in my judgment, produce great effect on the slave- 
holders, to promulgate at the North, the doctrine, that it is their duty 
immediately to emancipate their slaves. Many of them, doubtless, 
would be deaf to this admonition of Christian friendship, and repel it 
as officious and intermeddling ; but I believe it would find access 
to the best consciences of the South, and that its tendency would 
be, still further to arouse consciences that are already a good deal 
agitated. 

11. The most effectual mode of preserving tranquillity among the 
slaves of the South will be, a knowledge of the fact, that efforts of a 
peaceful and Christian character are making in their behalf. Just 
in proportion as stick efforts are urged, and give hope to the slaves, 
that the time of their deliverance draws nigh, will be their patient 
continuance in their present state — lest an act of indiscretion in them 
defeat what has been already gained, mortify and disappoint their 
friends, and discourage them from making renewed exertions. I 
doubt not that the tranquillity of the British West Indies, so far as it 
was preserved for the last ten years, was secured by the influence of 
the philanthropists in the mother country. The slaves with whom I 



JAMES G. BIRNEY. 119 

have conversed on the subject of the present efforts have, without 
exception, looked upon their sober and peaceful demeanor as an 
essential contribution on their parts to their success. 

III. I consider all schemes of gradual emancipation as utterly 
unfit to meet the present evils, and to avert the dangers which threaten 
from the continued existence of slavery. They are all, in the first 
place, inoperative on the master — they let go his conscience, by not 
insisting on immediate repentance for present sin. In the second 
place, they produce no good effect on the heart and mind of the slave. 
Founded on expediency, or policy, as all such plans must be from 
their very nature, the slave will feel no respect for the motive which 
originates them. He will consider that nothing has been done from 
a regard to his rights or Ms interests, but all for the advantage and 
benefit of the master. The master, uninfluenced by Christian prin- 
ciple in the act of emancipation, would not, in all probability, follow 
his freedman with Christian effort for his moral and intellectual im- 
provement — the freedman feeling no respect for the motives of the 
master in giving him his liberty, would naturally, as it appears to me, 
reject his influence. Thus they would be left unbound by any tie 
that would lead to continued kindness on the one side, and respect 
and grateful recollections on the other. Any plan of emancipation, 
however gradual it might be, would be better than perpetual slavery ; 
but surely it is the great desideratum of any plan, that it leave the 
parties friends, as freemen. None will effect this which is not 
founded on Christian principle — and there can be none, so far as I 
am enabled to see, which so fully recognises Christian principle as its 
basis, as that which urges immediate emancipation. 

IV. There would be no danger of personal violence to the master 
from emancipation, brought about by Christian benevolence. Such 
an apprehension is the refuge of conscious guilt. Emancipation, 
brought about on the principle above mentioned, I hesitate not to say, 
would, in most instances, where the superior intelligence of the mas- 
ter was acknowledged, produce on the part of the beneficiaries, the 
most entire and cordial reliance on his counsel and friendship. I do 
not believe that I have any warmer friends than my manumitted 
slaves — none, I am sure, if sacrifices were called for, who would 
more freely make them, to promote my happiness. 

The injustice which i\ie slave feels as done him in taking the avails 
of his labor, leads him to take clandestinely, what he persuades him- 
self he is entitled to. He has comparatively no character to lose, no 
ultimate object, for the attainment of which, the building up of a good 
character would contribute. As a freeman, character would be essen- 
tial to him — his earnings would be his ; his house, his furniture, his 
comforts would be his — his wife, his children would be his ; the 
apprehension of forcible separation would depart, and he would have 
every motive that ordinarily influences men to build up a good name 
for worth and honesty. The depredations on the masters' property 
by slaves, I should suppose, are tenfold what they would be by the 
same slaves made freemen. 



120 JAMES G. BIRNEY. 

V. The slaves, if emancipated on any terms, would be able to 
provid'^ for themselves and their families. If they should be kindly 
treated by their former masters, and Christian benevolence should 
make the same efforts for their improvement, that are made in many 
places for the improvement of the distant heathen — they would not 
only provide for themselves, but with such opportunities, become 
good citizens. I have made frequent inquiry as to the number of 
paupers among the colored people of Kentucky, amounting to nearly 
five thousand — I have, as yet, heard of but one. I think it is a rare 
thing, so far as I have had opportunity of observing, in slave states, 
to see free colored persons arraigned in courts, to answer to criminal 
accusations. My own manumitted slaves, at the end of the first year 
of their employment on wages, will have used but half the amount 
they are to receive. They have not fallen into disorderly or vagrant 
habits ; but have manifested — at least the younger ones — an increased 
desire for knowledge, and for attendance on the Sabbath schools, 
and the common ministrations of the sanctuary. To delay emanci- 
pation, in order to attain the greatest good it is believed will result 
from it, is, in my judgment, but to accumulate the difficulties now in 
the way, and to delay to a remoter period its full consummation. 

VI. Having emancipated my slaves from a full conviction, that 
the bondage in which I was holding them was sinful, I conceive I 
have no greater right to ask for compensation from any quarter, than 
I would have in any other case, where a similar conviction would 
lead me to return to my neighbor any property to which he had an 
unquestionable right, and which I by superior power had withlield 
from him. The claim of " compensation," it seems to me, can be 
fairly sustained only on the ground, that slaveholding is not sinful. 
Would not the Ephesian converts, who at once abandoned their 
" curious arts," and burned the " books" which contained instructions 
in them, have been as equitably entitled to compensation as the 
slaveholder, who abandons a property equally condemned by God's 
law, and commits to the flames the charter by which he has hitherto 
supported his groundless claims l 

VII. It has been my opinion, from the best and most impartial 
observation I could make, that the principles, measures, and doctrines 
entertained, pursued and inculcated by the advocates of " coloniza- 
tion," so far from having any " visible influence upon the syste?ii of 
slavery" for its removal, have rather tended to confirm and strengthen 
it. These propositions — that slavery may be innocently continued 
till the slaves can be removed and comfortably provided for in Africa 
— the danger to the colony, of removing many to it very soon — its 
slow growth, the great comparative increase of the slave population 

—have removed each particular slaveholder's duty so far in advance 
ot him, that in the distant haze, it becomes scarcely a discernible 
point. Beside this, it has tended in a great degree, as I believe, to 
raise up and strengthen prejudice against the free colored people of 
our country. The whites, who are under the influence of this preju- 
dice, think the free colored people ought to remove from the country 



J. T. WOODBURY GENIUS OF UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION. 121 

of their birth, because they (the whites) wish it, and not because it is 
a desirable thing to (hose who are called upon io act. 

I have thus answered, much more briefly, however, than I would 
under other circumstances, your several inquiries. I trust what I 
have done may contribute somewhat to the advancement of the great 
cause of humanity in which so many Christian heads and hearts are 
now so deeply interested. But have not you, and the particular 
Church of which you are members, long since purified yourselves 
from all participation in the sin of slaveholding 1 To your honor be 
it said, you were the first to cleanse your skirts from this foul stain. 
But is there nothing more for you to do ? Will you, who can speak 
as having authority, in no wise rebuke your neighbor, but suffer sin 
to be upon him 1 Will you, who, having purified yourselves, and 
are, therefore, unrebukable, sit quietly by, clothed in the heavenly 
armor of innocence, and behold undisturbed a system shooting up 
into giant size, and acquiring giant power for destruction — for de- 
struction not only of its victims, but of those who lead the victims to 
its bloody altars l May I not persuade myself you will not 1 — Reply 
to Queries of some Friends, 1835. 



JAMES T. WOODBURY. 

We can vote slavery down in Columbia and in our territones. 
"But," it is objected, "it will dissolve the Union." Mr. Birney says, 
the South never w ill do it, for they cannot support themselves, and we 
are more liable to go there and fight, to keep their slaves in subjection. 
The slaves, if they are freed, will not come here, their labor is wanted 
in the South. The South do not hate the black skin with which God 
has covered them, as we do. " But they smell bad." No bad 
smell while they are slaves ; they are about the persons of their mas- 
ters and mistresses, and nurse their children, and do not scent them 
with the bad smell, — but as soon as they are free — bad smell. 



"GENIUS OF UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION." 

Much has been said by the advocates and apologists of slavery, 
about the danger of emancipation — that it would be accompanied or 
followed by insurrections, massacres, and servile war. Now no sane 
man des!»es to turn loose upon society, a horde of ignorant men, either 
white or black, without the salutary restraints of law. We wish to 
see the assumed right of property in human flesh abolished, and the 
laws made for the protection, as well as for the government and re- 
straint, of every man of every nation and color. To place every 
man under the protection of the law, and to abolish that licentiousness 
and tyranny which are now tolerated, would be to restore society to 

16 



122 PUBLIC LEDGER WILLIAM LEGGETT. 

its natural order, and give every man an interest in the preservation 
of the peace and harmony of the community. All fear of hostility 
and temptations to excite insurrections, or to shed the blood of the 
white men, would be banished with the removal of the cause which 
produce them. In all cases where the experiment has been tried, 
[in the West Indian Islands,] our reasoning from the nature of man, 
and the influence which just treatment will always exert on his moral 
character, has been proved by incontestable facts. — Evan Lewis. 



PUBLIC LEDGER. 

An impressive lesson is taught to the people of the United States, 
by the abortive attempts of the French to become free. This lesson 
is that without republican organization throughout all branches of 
society, constitutions are of very little use ; that such organization 
does not necessarily flow from free constitutions, but that free con- 
stitutions to endure and be practically useful, must flow from such 
organization. What then is the conclusion to which every reflecting 
American will come 1 That this organization is to be maintained as 
the very foundation of his liberties. 

Is this organization in danger? We regret the necessity which 
proclaims us to answer in the affirmative. A {ew years since, and 
any American citizen would have pronounced any attempt to disturb 
or interrupt a public meeting, an act of high treason against his liber- 
ties. What is the case now '] Such disturbances are of daily occur- 
rence, and all deliberation is at the mercy of disorderly mobs. This 
is a subject for grave reflection, and we invite to it the serious con- 
sideration of every repubhcan. The consequences are not limited to 
the interruption of the meeting disturbed. They strike deeper. They 
endanger our whole system. They lead to despotism. — Philadelphia, 
1837. 



WILLIAM LEGGETT. 

The whole matter resolves itself into this plain alternative, " Either 
the northern states must give up the right of free discussion, or they 
must give up the federal compact." When the choice has really to 
be made between the two evils, we will not so disparage the free 
spirit of the people of this portion of the confederacy, as to suppose 
it possible they can hesitate for a moment, in making their selection. 
It was " to secure the blessings of liberty" we confederated ; and we 
would rend the compact which holds the states together into a thou- 
sand pieces, and scatter them to all the carrion kites, before we would 
seek to preserve it for a single instant at the expense of that best 
privilege of freemen — the unlimited right of speech and of the press. 



WILLIAM LEGGIlTT. 123 

The southern people very much mistake the temper of those of the 
North, if they suppose they can either be driven by menaces, or won 
by entreaties, to rehnquish, or restrain by legal prohibitions, the sacred 
right of a free interchange of opinion on any subject which may seem 
to them deserving of discussion. We have elsewhere, in this number 
of our paper, expressed our conviction of the instant prostration, never 
to rise again, which any administration, in any of the northern states, 
would certainly experience, that should dare so to outrage the com- 
mon sentiment of liberty, as to propose a law to abridge the freedom 
of speech. The southern slaveholders may rely upon it this view of 
the subject is correct. There is no possible chance of their coercing 
or inducing, by any threat or argument they can present, a single state 
north of the Potomac, to adopt the only alternative they offer for pre- 
serving the federal union. 

The opinions of the southern people themselves, with respect to 
the perfect right which every American citizen possesses, to discuss 
the subject of slavery, have undergone a world-wide change in the 
course of a few years. If they will look into the writings of Jefferson 
and Madison, they will find that those great men, though southerners 
and slaveholders, not only did not claim any such right of interdicting 
the subject as is now set up, but exercised it very freely themselves. 
If they will turn to the record of the debate which took place in con- 
gress in 1790, on the question of committing the memorial of the 
Society of Friends against the slave-trade, they will find that Mr. 
Madison explained the obligations of the federal compact, in a very 
different manner from that which it is the fashion of the present day 
to iflterpret them. They will find that, in the review which he en- 
tered into of the circumstances connected with the adoption of the 
constitution, he very clearly showed that the powers of congress were 
by no means as limited as it is now contended that they are. They 
will find that, in speaking of the territories of the United States, he 
expressly declared, from his knowledge, as well of the sentiments 
and opinions of the members of the convention, as of the true mean- 
ing and force of the terms of the compact, that there " congress have 
certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery." It is fortunate 
that Madison and Jefferson did not live to this day, or they would 
have been denounced as abolitionists, fanatics, and incendiaries, and 
every thing else that is bad. Lieutenant Governor Robinson would 
no doubt have honored them with a place in his message, as ring- 
leaders of his " organized band of conspirators.'' 

But though Madison and Jefferson are gone, the spirit which ani- 
mated them still glows in many a freeman's bosom ; and while one 
spark of it remains, the South will storm and rave in vain, for it never 
can induce the northern states to give up freedom for the sake of 
union ; to give up tlie end for the sake of the means ; to give up the 
substance for the sake of the shadow. — The Plaindealer. 



134 FLORIDA MR. PEYTON. 



FLORIDA. 



The Hon. Timothy Pitkin of Connecticut, said, the slaves in 
Georgia, while Florida was owned by Spain, were in the habit of 
running away to Florida, and their masters could not recover them — 
that in consequence, hundreds and hundreds of letters were written 
to the President, urging him to purchase Florida, that it MUST be 
bought at ALL EVENTS — and that in consequence of this, the 
matter was discussed in congress IN SECRET SESSION, and 
the result was a vote to purchase that territory. — Conversation with 
A. A. Phelps. 

[Florida was then bought, it seems, just to protect the slavery of 
Georgia.] 



MR. PEYTON OF TENNESSEE. 

Why, sir, those speculators, or rather Indian robbers, would find an 
old chief upon his patrimonial estate, where the chiefs and kings of 
his race had lived for centuries before him, with his slaves and his 
farm around him, smoking his pipe amidst his own forest trees, 
spurning any offer to purchase his home ; and they would bribe 
some vagabond Jndian to personate him, in a trade to sell his land, 
forging his name, and the first intimation that he would have of the 
transaction would be his expulsion by force from his home ! This 
was common ; and not only so, but, under the pretext of reclaiming 
fugitive slaves, the wives and children (of mixed blood) of the Indians 
were seized and carried off into bondage. The famous Oseola him- 
self had his wife taken from him, and that too, it has been said, by a 
government officer, and was chained by this officer to a log. Sir, 
what else could be expected but that these scourged, plundered, 
starving savages, would glut their vengeance by the indiscriminate 
slaughter of the innocent and helpless families of the frontier, whose 
blood has cried to us in vain? This has caused the Florida war 
Speech in Congress, 1837. 



)se 



126 



" Hail Columbia ! Happy Land ! ! !" 



^Ai. 







AUTHENTIC ANECDOTES OF UNITED STATES' 
SLAVERY. 

" a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neitlier can a corrupt tree hring forth good fruit 
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." 



JAMES H. DICKEY. 

In the summer of 1822, as I returned with my family from a visit to the Barrens 
of Kentucky, I witnessed a scene such as I never witnessed before, and such as 1 
hope never to witness again. Having passed tlirough Paris, in Bourbon county, 
Ky., the sound of music (beyond a little rising ground) attracted my attention; I 
looked forward and saw the flag of my country waving. Supposing that I was 
about to meet a military parade, I drove hastily to the side of the road ; and havino' 
gained the top of the ascent, I discovered (I suppose) about forty black men all 
chained together after the following manner ; each of them was handcnfl^ed, and 
they were arranged in rank and file. A chain, perhaps forty feet long, the size of a 
fiftPi-horse-chain, was stretched between the two ranks, to which short chains were 
joined, which connected with the handcuffs. Behind them were, I suppose, about 
thirty women in double rank, the couples tied hand to hand. A solemn sadness 
sat on every countenance, and the dismal silence of this march of despair was in- 
terrupted only by the sound of two violins ; yes, as if to add insult to injury, the 
foremost couple were furnished with a viohn apiece ; the second couple were orna- 
mented with cockades, while near the centre waved the republican flag carried by 
a hand literally in chains. I perhaps have mistaken some pimctilios of the arrange- 
ment, for "my soul was sick," my feelings were mingled and pungent. As a 
man, I sympathized with suffering humanity; as a Christian, I mourned over the 
transgressions of God's holy law ; and as a republican, I felt indignant to see the 
flag of my beloved country thus insulted. I could not forbear e.tclaiming to the 



126 GEORGK WHITFIELD JOHN RANKIN. 

lordly driver who rode at his ease along side : " Heaven will curse that man who 
engages in such traffic, and the government that protects him in it." I pursued 
my journey till evening, and put up for the night When I mentioned the scene 1 
had witnessed, "Ah!" cned my landlady, "That is my brother." From her I 
learned that his name is Stone, of Bourbon county, Kentucky, in partnership with 
one Kinningham, of Paris; and that a few days before he had purchased a negro 
woman from a man in Nicholas county ; she refused to go with him ; he attempted 
to compel her, but she defended herself Without further ceremony, he stepped 
back, and by a blow on the side of her head with the butt of his whip brought her 
to the ground ; he tied her, and drove her off I learned further, thai, besides the 
drove I had seen, there were about thirty shut up in the Paris prison for safe-keep- 
ing, to be added to the company ; and that they were designed for the Orleans 
market. And to this they are doomed, for no other crime than that of a black skin 
and curled locks. 

Ah me, what wish can prosper, or what prayer, 
For merchants rich in cargoes of despair ? 
Who drive a loathsome traffic, guage and span, 
And buy the muscles and the bones of man. — Cowper. 

Shall not I visit for these things, saith tlie Lord ? shall not my soul be avenged 
on euch a nation as this ? 



GEORGE WHITFIELD. 

As I lately passed through your provinces in my way hither, I was sensibly 
touched with a fellow-feeling for the miseries of the poor negroes. Whether it be 
lawful for Christians to buy slaves, and thereby encourage the nations from whom 
they are bought to be at perpetual war with each other, I shall not take upon me to 
determine. Sure I am it is sinful, when they have bought them, to use them as bad 
as though they were brutes, nay worse ; and whatever particular exceptions there 
may be (as I would charitably hope there are some) I fear the generality of you, 
who own negroes, are liable to such a charge ; for your slaves, I believe, work as 
hard, if not harder than the horses whereon you ride. These, after they have done 
their work, are fed and taken proper care of; but many negroes when wearied 
with labor in your plantations, have been obliged to grind their com after their 
return home. Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your table ; but your slaves, 
who are frequently styled dogs or beasts, have not an equal privilege. They are 
scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from tiieir master's table. Not 
to mention what numbers have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel task- 
masters who, by their unrelenting scourges have ploughed their backs, and made 
long furrows, and at length brought them even unto death. When passing along 
I have viewed your plantations cleared and cultivated, many spacious houses built, 
and the owners of them faring sumptuously every day, my blood has frequently 
almost run cold within me, to consider how many of your slaves had neither con- 
venient food to eat nor proper raiment to put on, notwithstanding most of tlie com- 
forts you enjoy were solely owing to their indefatiguable labors. — Letter to the in- 
habitants of Maryland, Virginia, J^orth and South Carolina, 1739. 



JOHN RANKIN. 

Often are the slaves driven tlirough frost and snow without either stocking or 
shoe until the path they tread is dyed with the blood that issues from their frost- 
worn limbs ! And when they return to their miserable huts at night they find not 
there the means of comfortable rest ; but on the cold ground they must lie without 
covering, and shiver while they slumber. 

In connexion with their extreme suffecings occasioned by want of clothing, I 



JOHN RANKIN. 127 

shall notice those which arise from the want of food. As the making of grain is the 
main object of their mancipation, masters will sacrifice as little as possible in giving 
them Ibod. It often happens that what will barely keep them alive, is all that a 
cruel avarice will allow them. Hence, in some instances, their allowance has 
been reduced to a single pint of corn each during the day and night. And in some 
places the best allowance is a peck of corn each during the week, while perhaps 
they are not permitted to taste meat so much as once in the course of seven years, 
except what little they may be able to steal ! Thousands of them are pressed with 
the gnawings of cruel hunger during their whole lives — an insatiable avarice will 
not grant them a single comfortable meal to satisfy the cravings of nature ! Such 
cruelty far exceeds the powers of description ! 

Alas, poor hapless slaves are doom'd to toil, 
With naked limbs, beneath the direful rage 
Of fiercely burning suns, and chilling blasts 
That beat upon them with alternate strokes ; 
While long years of fierce starvation onward 
Roll, with lingering pace, and the grating wheels 
Of time, that measures out the dreary span 
Of hard, servile life, scarcely seem to move. 
And the toil-worn and weatherbeaten flesh 
Longs for the peaceful, lasting sleep of death, 
And seeks a shelter in the silent grave. 
From hunger, toil, and raging elements. 

You tell me that " If the poor negroes were set free, tliey would either starve or 
turn to highway robbing." But certainly their situation could not be worse than it 
now is with regard to starvation and robbing. Thousands of them are really 
starving in a state of slavery, and are under the direful necessity of stealing what- 
ever they can find, that will satisfy the cravings of hunger; and I have little doubt 
but many actually stai-ve to death. Should they starve when free, the fault would, in 
some measure, be their own, and should they steal they could be punished for it, in 
the same manner that white thieves are punished for their thefts. 

The slaveholder has it in his power to violate the chastity of his slaves. And 
not a few are beastly enough to exercise such power. Hence it happens, that in 
some families it is difficult to distinguish the free children from the slaves. It is 
sometimes the case, that the largest part of the master's own children are born, not 
of his wife, but of the wives and daughters of his slaves, whom he has basely pros- 
tituted as well as enslaved. His poor slaves are his property, and, therefore, must 
yield to iiis lusts as well as to his avarice ! He may perpetrate upon them the 
most horrid crimes, and they have no redress ! The wretched slave must, without 
a murmuring word, give up his wife, or daughter, for prostitution, should his master 
be vile enough to demand her of him ! It must be a horrid crime for any state to 
give one man such power over another, and such crime has every slaveholding 
state committed. I am far from wishing to intimate that this power is generaDy so 
grossly exercised as it might be. Some slaveholders are, doubtless, as chaste as 
any other people, and conscientiously endeavor to preserve the chastity of their 
slaves ; but I wish to show the extent of the power with which they are vested, 
and the shocking manner in which it is sometimes exercised. 

In addition to this, we may remark, that the proprietors of slaves have it in their 
power to crowd the males and females together, in such a manner as is calculated 
to induce criminal intercourse, and to the great disgrace of human nature this is 
sometimes done for the base purpose of breeding slaves for market, as though they 
were mere animals, and not human beings ! 

In this place I will further remark, that slavery not merely puts the chastity of the 
slave in the power of the master, but also exposes it to attacks from every lecherous 
class of men. Slaves cannot bear testimony against people that are white and free 
— hence a wide door is opened for the practice, both of violence and seduction, 
without detection ; and the consequences of this are exceedingly manifested in 
every slaveholding country — every town and its vicinity soon become crowded 
with mulattoes. In this respect slavery is the very sink of filthiness, and the 
source of every hateful abomination. It seems to me astonishing that any govern- 
ment, much more that of the United States, should sanction such a source of mon- 
strous crime as slavery evidently is ! 

Again, the proprietors of slaves may exact from them excessive labor, and thus 



128 JOHN RANKIN. 

lay upon them an intolerable burden during life. It is well known that many 
masters are so avaricious that they cannot be satisfied with a reasonable quantity 
of labor. The manner in which these unfeeling monsters exact labor from their 
poor slaves may be illustrated by a single fact, the knowledge of which came to me 
from a respectable source, and though it appears most shocking to every humane 
feeling, yet I believe it can be fully attested. 

A wealthy citizen of Georgia purchased, on shipboard, ix African girls, who pro- 
bably were directly from Africa, and having brought them home, he put them into 
the hands of his overseer, and ordered him to assign them a certain portion of labor 
during each day of the week, and in case they should fail to perform it, he was 
commanded to give thein a considerable number of lashes eacli, and add the re- 
mainder of the task to the next day's labor, and in case they should fail to perform 
the whole, he was ordered to add to the number of lashes in proportion to the 
failure, and still to add the deficiency to the next day's labor, and thus he was daily 
to increase both the labor and stripes in case of failure. The overseer, hardhearted 
as he was, expostidated with him, and assured him that the labor was moi-e than 
the girls were able to perform, but he swore with a tremendous oath that they 
should do it or die. The poor creatures commenced the dreadful task, but being 
unaccustomed to such labor, their hands were soon worn to the quick ; this they 
endured with patience, and did all they could to perform what was assigned them, 
but they were totally unable to accomplish it; they failed on the first day, and re- 
ceived the cruel lashes. The next morning, with sore backs and bleeding hands 
they attempted the enlarged task — their hoehandles were soon made red witli their 
innocent blood— they labored with great assiduity^ but they could not perform the 
unreasonable task, and consequently received the enlarged number of lashes. On 
ihe third morning they commenced again, but the task was so much enlarged that 
all hope of performing it was entirely precluded, and the enormously increased 
number of lashes became certain — the unhappy creatures despaired of life, and 
concluded that they must inevitably die under the torturing lash, unless they could 
despatch themselves in some other method. This appeared to be the only means 
of escaping the most terrible cruelty. Hence they tbrmed and executed the dread- 
ful design of hanging themselves. The horn blew for dinner, all started to their 
huts, but these unfortunate girls lingered behind, and unobserved by the rest of the 
company turned aside into a thicket, and there all six hanged themselves ! They 
were soon missed, and search was quickly made for them — they were immediately 
found, and the cruel master, enraged by the disappointment and loss, made every 
possible exertion to bring them back to life, that they might again fall under the 
weight of his vengeance ! but all his attenqits were in vain — their souls were gone 
into an awful eternity, and had their eternal destiny unalterably fixed! And being 
exceedingly exasperated on finding that they had escaped from his hand, he ordered 
a hole to be dug for them, and caused them to be tumbled into it like mere animal 
carcasses, while he vented the most awfid imprecations upon tliem! And the 
overseer was ordered to exact from the rest of his slaves what labor he intended 
them to perform. 

Thus we see that a single tyrant has driven six poor, helpless females out of life 
by exacting from them excessive labor. And who can estimate the sum of similar 
cruelties that are practised upon the poor Africans, by the many thousand tyrants, 
who, from the slaveholding states, have literally received license for tyrannical 
exercise? To permit men to hold slaves is in reality the same thing as to give 
them license to commit cruelties, and those even of the most shocking kind. By 
such license, the poor African girls we have just mentioned perished, and by it 
thousands arc daily droppins; into eternity from under the grievous burdens of 
excessive toil. That men will work their slaves to excess, must be expected when 
the inordinate love of eain is the predominating principle in the whole system of 
involuntary slavery. This principle induces many slaveholders to employ such 
overseers as are destitute of humane feeling, and naturally prepense to cruelty, 
and thus well prepared to drive poor slaves to the highest degree of excessive labor, 
And in some instances they are given such an interest in Ihe pending crops as 
stimulates them to the greatest severity in driving the miserable creatures whom 
they oversee. Thus the principles of avarice and cruelty, is heaping most oppres- 
sive burdens of labor upon slaves, and that, under such circumstances, their situa- 
tion is most deplorable, must be obvious to every one capable of reflection. 



JOHN RANKIN. 129 

The same principle which inJuces some to place their slaves under the most 
merciless overseers, prompts others to take theirs to public places and let them for 
hire, to the highest bidders. In this way slaves often fall into the hands of the 
most cruel tyrants the world can produce, and consequently are most grievously 
oppressed by excessive labor — they must undergo whatever an insatiable avarice is 
pleased to lay upon them, and, like the ever yawning grave, it never says it is 
enough — it never compassionates the weary limbs of the poor enslaved Africans, 
nor proposes rest to those whom it chains down to servile life. It even drives 
them to the laborious task while they are sinking under the influence of mortal 
disease ! 

Those, who. are unacquainted with the depravity of the human heart, may be dis- 
posed to believe it impossible that any should be so cruel as to drive their slaves to 
work while they are laboring under mortal disease ; but it can be established by 
the best of testimony that slaves have been thus driven, and that almost to the 
moment of expiration ! 

A respectable gentleman, who is now a citizen of Flemingsburg, Fleming county, 
Kentucky, was, when in the state of South Carolina, invited by a slaveholder to 
walk with him and take a view of his farm. He complied with the invitation thus 
given, and in their walk they came to the place where the slaves were at work, 
and found the overseer whipping one of them very severely for not keeping pace 
with his fellows — in vain the poor fellow alleged that he was sick, and could not 
work. The master seemed to think all was well enough, hence he and the gentle- 
man passed on. In the space of an hour they returned by the same way, and 
found that the poor slave, who had been whipped as they passed by the field of 
labor, was actually dead ! This I have from unquestionable authority. 

Thus we see that a merciless overseer will push his hapless slave for his labor, 
to the last moment, and follow him with the torturing lash into the very gates of 
eternity I 

Similar cruelty has happened in Kentucky. In that state an unfeeling woman 
compelled a female slave to labor during the space of four days after she had re- 
ceived the mortal attack ! Thus are the poor creatures driven while their mortal 
frames are able to move. And the manner in which they are often treated after 
they are so reduced by disease as to be no longer able to move, is equally cruel. 

A respectable physician of my acquaintance and now residing in the state of 
Alabama, did in that state attend upon twenty slaves, who were confined by severe 
fevers, and that in an open pen without roof, and thus were exposed to every shower 
of rain that fell during tlie time of their sickness. 

When I bring slavery near, inspect it closely, and find that it is inflicted on men 
and women, who possess the same nature and feelings with myself, my sensibility 
is immediately roused — but when I, who sustain the relations of husband and 
father, see a husband and father whipped severely in the presence of his wife and 
children, and that perhaps merely to gratify the caprice of an ill-natured master, my 
feelings become indignant — and M'hen I see the mother most cruelly scourged in 
the presence of her husband and children, my feehngs grow intolerable — my soul 
sickens at the sight, and my indignation almost prompts me to unlawful deeds of 
vengeance. But how can I quell my tumultuous passions, when in addition to all 
this, I see the poor little children whipped in the presence of their parents, until 
their little backs are literally covered with blood? Had you, my brother, to endure 
all these cruelties, would you not abhor the law that permitted them to be inflicted 
upon you ? And would you not detest all the people, who, either in theory or 
practice, give it their sanction ? Indeed, such a law nmst appear most detestable 
1 to every one that views it in its real nature and tendency — it sanctions the most 
! tragical scenes of cruelty ever witnessed among men — it permits the slaveholder to 
bind his fellow man, strip him naked, and whip him on the bare skin, with the 
keenest whips that art can invent, and that just so long as the most vengeful pas- 
sion may dictate, provided the life is spared ! Hence many poor slaves are stript 
naked, stretched and tied across barrels, or large logs, and tortured with the keenest 
laahes, during hours and even whole days, until their flesh is mangled to the very 
, bones. Others are stript and hung up by the arms, their feet are tied together, and 
I the end of a heavy piece of timber is put between their legs in order to stretch their 
bodies, and so prepare them for the torturing lash — and in this situation they are 
' often whipt until their bodies are covered with blood and mangled flesh, and in 



130 JOHN RANKIN. 

order to add the greatest keenness to their sufferings, tlieir wounds are washed with 
liquid salt ! And some of the miserable creatures are permitted to hang in that 
position until they actually expire ; some die under the lash, others linger about 
for some time, and at length die of their wounds, and many survive, and endure 
again similar torture. These bloody scenes are constantly exhibited in every 
slaveholding country — thousands of whips are every day stained in African blood ! 
Even the poor females are not perinitted to escape these shocking cruelties. Of 
this 1 will give you an instance. 

A certain citizen of Kentucky purchased a piece of furniture, and after he brought 
it home, his wife unfortunately broke some small part of it, and that in the presence 
of a neighboring gentleman ; she nevertheless charged it upon a black girl of about 
seventeen years of age. The girl honestly declared her innocence, but the mistress 
persisted in her charge against her. At length the brutish master seized the poor 
unfortunate girl, drew her clothes up over her head, hanged her by them to the 
limb of a tree, and in that shameful position vvhipt her several times very severely. 
By the extremity of torture she was sonietimes forced to say that she did break the 
furniture, but in the moment of respite, she would honestly deny it again — and this 
subjected her to more torture. Fortunately ibr the poor girl the gentleman who 
was present when the mistress broke the furniture, happened to be passing by — he 
paused in amazement at the shocking scene — he soon discovered the cause of 
the cruelty — indignation overcame him — he approached the brutish master and 
told him that his own wife iiad broken the furniture in his presence, and declared 
that if he did not cease from torturing the poor girl he would give him as much as 
he had given her — with this the shameless monster thought it necessary to comply, 
and for that time the poor girl was released from his torturing hand. The gentle- 
man who rescued the girl and stated this fact, is now a resident of the state of Ohio, 
and is known to be a man of truth. 

It is painful to my feelings to record such a shameful outrage upon decency and 
humanity ; but it is necessary to do it in order to show the horrible extent of the 
slaveholder's power over his slaves. Every slaveholder has power to strip his 
female slaves, and treat them in the same disgraceful manner, and thousands of 
them are base enough to put such power into exercise. It really grieves me to 
think that any government, and much more that our own, does sanction such an 
abomination. 

Finally, our system of slavery puts it completely in the power of the slaveholders 
to dismember their slaves, or even murder them at pleasure ! It is true that slave- 
holding states have enacted laws to prohibit the proprietors of slaves from breaking 
their limbs or taking their lives ; but what avail such laws while slaves are made 
the property of their masters ? May not men order their property to any place to 
which they may wish it to go? Hence, may not the vengeful master order his slave 
into his kitchen, or some other secret place, and there break all his limbs, tear out 
his eyes, and even murder him with the most savage cruelty ? Or may he not do 
all this, even in the open field, in the presence of a thousand other slaves, and yet 
escape the sentence of the law? Not one of all this thousand could be a witness 
against him, and perhaps not one of them would even so much as dare to mention 
the crime. Hence, the poor slave has no security, either for his limbs, or his life, 
further, than what is in the will of his master. And, alas ! there is often but little 
there ! Could you secretly attend the fields, the kitchen, and the huts, in which 
slaves labor and live, you would see limbs broken, sculls fractured, and even eyes 
torn out. And what is if possible still worse, you would see many most cruelly 
murdered. 

A respectable young lady of my acquaintance, received a most painful shock by 
unexpectedly discovering one of the terrible things which are sometimes done in 
the kitchen. She visited the house of a certain Kentuckian, who was considered 
reputable. There she seemed at first to enjoy a pleasant hour in the social circle. 
In the parlor every thing appeared comfortable and decent — every countenance was 
so cheerful that one might have imagined that good nature and happiness resided 
in the bosom of each member of the family. But, alas ! she unfortunately stepped 
into the kitchen. And ah ! how changed was the scene ! The most doleful aspect 
saluted her delicate eyes ! There sat a poor old black woman, with one of her eye- 
balls hanging on her cheek ! It had been torn from the socket by the hand of her 
mistress! How painful was the sight, and how doleful was the tale of wo! And 



JOHN RANKIN. 131 

how little did the young \'isitant expect to witness such a scene I She could not 
conceal her feelings — she wept, and she retired with emotions of horror ! This 
shocking cruelty was committed with impunity — no law could possibly reach the 
case. The tale of the poor sable sufferer would not be heard in court, and such 
crimes are seldom perpetrated in the presence of such as would be heard, and when 
they are, but few, if any, are willing to be at the expense and trouble of commenc- 
ing and supporting a prosecution on the behalf of slaves. The truth is, when once 
a man is made the property of another, and thus put completely under his control, 
it is impossible to enact laws that will protect cither his life or his limbs. And 
every attempt to punish the master for abusing the slave will but instigate him to 
greater cruelty ! The love of gain affords all tlie protection the poor slaves can have, 
and it is well known that this has but little influence on the violent passions of 
men — to the vicious heart revenge is gain. |&. 

In spite of all law, slaveholders have the power of life and death over their slaves. 
And some of them do exercise such power with perfect impunity. It is undeniable 
that some drive their slaves nearly naked through frost and snow until they perish 
with cold, some gradually starve them to death, and some cause them to expire 
beneath the burden of excessive toil — others whip them to death in a manner that 
more than equals the cruelty of tlie most barbarous savages, and not a few murder 
them with clubs, axes, and guns, or such like fatal weapons ! It is undeniable, 
that in these several ways many slaves are murdered with the utmost impunity ! 
It is seldom that even so much as a prosecution is incurred by murdering them ; 
and I do not recollect of ever hearing of a single individual being executed for tak- 
ing the life of his slave. I am persuaded there is as much humane feeling in Flem- 
ing county, Kentucky, as can be found in any slaveholding section of country, of 
the same extent, and I think this will be readily admitted by all who are acquainted 
with the people of that county, and yet there is a certain individual, in consequence 
of an unjust suspicion, fell upon ids poor old slave, beat him in the face, and 
mashed it in such a manner as soon terminated his life, yet by it he incurred not 
even so much as a prosecution ! I mention tliis case, not because it is either sin- 
gular or novel, but because it happened in one of the most humane sections of one 
of the mildest slaveholding countries, and therefore, is well calculated to show 
what is the real state of things, even where slavery wears its mildest aspect. It 
shows clearly that the system of slavery in its best form is fraught with the most 
horrid murders. 

I will close this part of my subject, by giving you an account of the most terrible 
display of slaveholding power, one that ought to make every slaveholding nation 
tremble, and one that must fill every humane bosom with horror! I will give it 
just as I received it from the pen of the Rev. William Dickey, who is well ac- 
quainted with the circumstances which he describes, and who is a man of undoubted 
veracity. 

" In the county of Livingston, Ky., near the mouth of the Cumberland, lived 
Lilburn Lewis, a sister's son of the venerable Jefferson. He, who ' suckled at fair 
Freedom's breast,' was the wealthy owner of a considerable number of slaves, 
whom he drove constantly, fed sparingly, and lashed severely. The consequence 
was, they would run away. This must have given to a man of spirit and a man 
of business great anxieties until he found them, or until they had starved out and 
returned. Among the rest was an ill grown boy about seventeen, who having just 
returned from a skulking spell, was sent to the spring for water, and in returning 
let fall an elegant pitcher. It was dashed to shivers upon the rocks. This was 
the occasion. It was night, and the slaves all at home. The master had them 
collected into the most roomy negro house, and a rousing fire made. When the 
door was secured, that none might escape, either through fear of him or sjTnpathy 
with George, he opened the design of the interview, namely, that they might be 
effectually taught to stay at home and obey his orders. All things being now in 
train, he called up George, who approached his liiaster with the most unreserved 
submission. He bound him with cords, and by the assistance of his younger 
brother, laid him on a broad bench, or meat block. He now proceeded to whang 
off George by the ancles ! ! It was with the broad axe ! — In vain did the unhappy 
victim SCREAM and rcar! He was completely in his master's power. Not a 
hand amongst so many durst interfere. Casting the feet into the fire, he lectured 
them at some length. He whacked him off below the knees ! George roaring 



132 DISCUSSION IN LANE SEMINARY. 

out, and praying his master to begin at the other end ! He admonished t!iem 
again, throwing the legs into the fire ! Then above the knees, tossing the joints 
into the fire ! He again lectured them at leisure. The next stroke severed the 
thighs from the body. These were also committed to the flames. And so off 
the arms, head, and trunk, until all was in the fire ! Still protracting the intervals 
with lectures, and threatenings of like punishment, in case of disobedience, and 
running away, or disclosure of this tragedy. Nothing now remained but to con- 
sume the flesh and bones; and for this purpose the fire was briskly stirred, until 
two hours after midnight, when, as though the earth would cover out of sight the 
nefarious scene, and as though the great Master in Heaven would put a mark of 
his displeasure upon such monstrous cruelty, a sudden and surprising shock of 
earthquake overturned the coarse and heavy back wall, composed of rock and clay, 
which completely covered the fire, an4|the remains of George.* This put an end to 
the amusements of the evening. The negroes were now permitted to disperse, 
with charges to keep this matter among themselves, and never to whisper it in the 
neighborhood, under the penalty of a like punishment. When he retired, the lady 
exclaimed, ' Oh ! Mr. Lewis, where have you been and what have you done !' 
She had heard a strange pounding, and dreadful screams, and had smelled some- 
thing like fresh meat burning! He said that he had never enjoyed himself at a ball 
so well as he had enjoyed himself that evening. Next morning he ordered the 
negroes to rebuild the back wall, and he himself superintended the work, throwing 
the pieces of flesh that still remained with the bones, behind as it went up, thus 
hoping to conceal the matter. But it could not be hid — much as the negroes seemed 
to hazard, the^' whispered the horrid deed to the neighbors, who came and before 
his eyes tore down the wall, and finding the remains of the boy, they testified 
against him. But before the court sat, to which he was bound over, he was, by an 
act of suicide, with George, in the eternal world. 

" Sure there are bolts, red with no common wrath, to blast the man. 

"WILLIAM DICKEY. 

"N. B. This happened in 1811, if I be correct, the 16th of December. It was 
the Sabbath !" 

Though the dreadful wretch was taken up on suspicion, and bound over to 
court, yet, I apprehend, there was little probability of his actually falling under the 
sentence of the law. He might have eventually so managed the matter as to 
make the sentence fall upon the heads of his slaves. 

This apprehension is rendered very probable by the fact that the populace 
actually let him out of prison, in order to screen him from justice. — Letters on 
Slavei-y. 



DISCUSSION IN LANE SEMINARY, FEBRUARY, 1834. 
Ought the slaveholding states to abolish slavery immediately ? 

A member from Alabama, speaking of the cruelties practised upon the slaves, 
said — "At our house it is so common to hear their screams from a neighboring 
plantation, that we think nothing of it. The overseer of this plantation told me one 
day, he laid a young v/oman over a log, and beat her so severely that she was soon 
after delivered of a dead child. A bricklayer, a neighbor of ours, owned a very 
smart young negro man, who ran away; but was caught. When his master got 
him home, he stripped him naked, tied him up by his hands, in plain sight and 
hearing of the academy and the public green, so high that his feet could not touch 
the ground ; then tied them together, and put a long board between his legs to keep 
him steady. After preparing him in this way, he took a paddle, bored it full of 
holes, and commenced beating him with it. He continued it leisurely all day. At 
night his flesh was literally pounded to a jelly. It was two weeks before he was 
able to walk. No one took any notice of it. No one thought any wrong was 
done." 

He stated many more facts of a similar kind. It will be recollected that he was 

[* The unusual continued intense heat might cause the falling of an old frozen waU, which 
the Ignorant negroes would of course ascribe to supernatural agency.] 



DISCUSSION IN LANE SEMINARY. 133 

attempting to give a fair ea:;)ose of slavery. "And (said he) lest anyone should 
think that in general the slaves are well treated, and these are the exceptions, let 
me be distinctly understood : — Cruelty is the rule, and kindness the exception." 

This was assented to and corroborated by all from the slaveholding states. And 
to show its truth, I will here introduce a few facts, as related by individuals from 
different parts of the country. 

Mr. , from Kentucky, who came here a colon izationist and a slaveholder, 

but has since turned abolitionist and emancipated his slaves, said — " Cruelties are 
so common, I hardly know what to relate. But one fact occurs to me just at this 
time that happened in the village where I Uve. The circumstances are these. A 
colored man, a slave, ran away. As he was crossing Kentucky river, a white man, 
who suspected him, attempted to stop him. The negro resisted. The white man 
procured help, and finally succeeded m securing him. He then wreaked his ven- 
geance on him for resisting — flogging him till he was not able to walk. They then 
put him on a horse, and came on with him ten miles to Nicholasville. When they 
entered the village, it was noticed that he sat upon his horse like a drunken man. 
It was a veiy hot day ; and whilst they were taking some refreshment, the negro 
sat down upon the ground under the shade. When they ordered him to go, he 
made several efforts before he could get up ; and when he attempted to mount the 
horse, his strength was entirely insufficient. One of the men struck him, and with 
an oath ordered him to get on the horse without any more fuss. The negro stag- 
gered back a few steps, fell down, and died. I do not know as any notice was 
ever taken of it." 

Mr. , of Virginia, amongst others, related tlie following : — " I frequently saw 

the mistress of the family beat the woman who performed the kitchen work, with a 
stick two feet and a half long, and nearly as thick as my wrist ; striking her over 
the head, and across the small of the back, as she was bent over at her work, with 
as much spite as you would a snake, and for what I should consider no offence at 
all. There lived in this same family a young man, a slave, who was in the habit 
of running away. He returned one time after a week's absence. The master took 
him into the barn, stripped him entirely naked, tied him up by his hands so high 
that he could not reach the floor, tied his feet together, and put a small rail between 
his legs, so that he could not avoid the blows, and commenced wliipping him. He 
told me that he gave him five hundred lashes. At any rate, he was covered with 
wounds from head to foot. Not a place as big as my hand but vhat was cut. Such 
things as these are perfectly common all over Virginia ; at least so far as I am ac- 
quainted. Generally, planters avoid punishing their slaves before strangers." 

Mr. , of Missouri, amongst others, related the following: — "A young wo- 
man who was generally very badly treated, after receiving a more severe whipping 
than usual, ran away. In a few days she came back, and was sent into the field 
to work. At this time, the garment next her skin was stiff" like a scab, from the 
running of the sores made by the whipping. Towards night, she told her master 
that she was sick, and wished to go to the house. She went ; and as soon as she 
reached it, laid down on the floor exhausted. The mistress asked her what the 
matter was ? She made no repl)'. She asked again ; but received no answer. 
' I'll see,' said she, ' if I can't make you speak.' So taking the tongs, she heated 
them red hot, and put them upon the bottoms of her feet ; then upon her legs and 
body ; and, finally, in a rage, took hold of her throat. This had the desired effect 
The poor girl faintly whispered, 'Oh, missee, don't — I am most gone ;' and expired." 

We want no other commentary on the state of feeling in that community than 
this. The woman yet lives there, and owns slaves. 

I am aware that it will be said, this is not a fair picture of slavery. But, sir, if I 
can judge from the conversation of gentlemen who have lived and been brought up 
amongst it, or from the testimony of respectable emancipated negroes, I know the 
picture has never yet been presented to the public, in all its ugliness. Such facts 
as these arc as common to them as household aflliirs ; and so common are they in 
the community where they occur, that little notice is taken of them. They produce 
no effect upon the public heart. They enlist no sympathy. They call up no pity. 
I do not mean to say, that every individual slaveholder treats his slaves cruelly. I 
know that there are exceptions. But it will be readily admitted by all, that the 
system of slavery tolerates it, and that the slave has no security, and can have no 
reciress. Augustus Wattles. 



134 ANECDOTES OF SLAVERY. 

SEPARATION OF A FAMILY. 

Another painful case occurred not very long since in this county. A widow lady, 
having a female slave with two children, was about removing iiom this county to 
Alabama. The husband of the colored woman, himself a slave, likewise lived in 
this county. Both master and mistress, and their two slaves, were professors of 
religion, members of the same identical church, and that a Presbyterian church. 
The widow lady apphed to her church session ibr a certificate of her good standing. 
The session felt it would be wrong to grant her request, unless she would make 
such arrangements as not to separate husband and wife, parents and children. 
The pastor of the church and others interested themselves in the case ; and the 
owaer of tlie black man offered to give what was thought a reasonable price for 
his wife and two cliildren. The widow lady, on being applied to, to accede to this 
proposition, refused ; and when her Christian sympathies were appealed to, she 
replied, that her friends need not trouble themselves about her concerns, — she could 
attend to her own business while she had her senses, &c. Shortly after, she sold 
her black woman to a most wicked man, the keeper of a grog-shop, and with the 
children, (the youngest of whom was but eleven months old, torn from the breast,) 
moved out of the country ; leaving husband and wife together, but separating 
parents and children. She was of course suspended from the church. It was said 
that the purchaser of the woman agreed, when he bought her, not to sell her again 
without her consent. However this may be, an opportunity offered a few weeks 
afler, and he sold her to be carried to a far country. Her husband, overwhelmed 
with grief, followed her the first evening afler her departure, and asked leave to 
spend the night with her. Even that favor her inhuman master utterly refused. 
And as the disconsolate husband stood without, his ears were saluted witli the 
infernal voice of the tyrant, Chain her down ! Chain her down ! ! The poor slave 
now lives in this town. His narration of the bitterness of his grief is enough to 
melt a heart of stone. Previous to his separation from his two children, he had lost 
a child by death. His affliction, he says, was nothing, when compared with that 
of having his two living children torn from lum for life. This last he thought as 
much as he could bear. But tenfold greater was the agony of grief, when the 
conjugal ties were broken for ever, and he was awakened to the painful conscious- 
ness of the fact, that his beloved wife was torn from his embraces, and carried where 
he should never see her more ! Bereft thus of his wife and children, his only con- 
solation is in the promises of the gospel. — Published in the Millennial Trumpeter, 
MaryvUle, Tennessee. 

FLOGGING TO DEATH. 

A slave in Georgia sought refuge in the swampy forest from the despotism which 
he could not brook, and kept himself concealed in places which a refugee slave alone 
would voluntarily inhabit, until the ragings of hunger overcame him, and he crept 
back to the plantation. 

The overseer received him with wrath, and regardless of his anguish and his 
entreaties, securing him with cords. Hogged him without pity. — The underling's 
arm grew weary — at length the tortured slave was writhing in his blood. Just 
then came in the master. He seized the lash, and pursued the outrage. " Pray, 
Massa," feebly screamed the perishing slave. What was prayer to the slave- 
master? Uncurbed despotism was afloat — who can utter its horrors? The suf- 
ferer's cries became more and more feeble, even the convulsions of his quivering 
flesh subsided — he felt no more; but the tyrant was inflamed with new rage at the 
passiveness of his object, and swore and drove the lash with more vengeful nerve ; 
but in vain. The spirit had returned to Him who gave it — the voice was silent, and 
the flesh was dead. 

The cause was tried in Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia. I had the account 
from a public officer, who was engaged in the trial. A lohite man having been pre- 
sent, the facts as above stated were proved. But the jury and the judge, as well as 
the murderer, were slaveholders.— The law was without difficulty evaded ; and the 
murderer walks abroad without stain, glorying in the freedom of his country ! 

AMALGAMATION. 
A kind slave-master, in one of the CaroUnas, had a large family of various colors, 
Bome enslaved, some free. One of the slaves was his favorite daughter ; she grew 



LETTER TO MR. TAPPAN. 135 

up beautiful, elegant, and much accomplished. Dying, he willed his heir, her 
brother, to provide for her handsomely, and make her free. But her brother was a 
slave-master, and she was a slave. He kept and debauched her. It would be 
unlawful even to speak of such things, were it not taking the part of tyrants to 
conceal them. At the end of four or five years he got tired of her, and that noto- 
rious slave-dealer, Woolfolk, coming down to collect a drove, he sold his sister to 
him. " There is her cottage," said he to Woolfolk ; " she is a violent woman. I 
don't hke to go near her ; go and carry her off by yourself" Woolfolk strode into 
the cottage, told her the fact, and ordered her to prepare. She was dreadfully 
agitated. He urged her to hasten. She rose and said, " White man, 1 don't be- 
lieve you. I don't believe that my brother would thus sell me and his children. I 
will not beheve unless he come himself" Woolfolk coolly went and required her 
brother's presence. The seducer, the tyrant, came, and, standing at the door, con- 
firmed the slave-dealer's report "And is it true ? and have you indeed sold me?" 
she exclaimed, "is it really possible? Look at this child; don't you see in every 
feature the hneaments of its father ; don't you know that your blood flows in its 
veins — have you — have you sold me?" The terrible fact was repeated by her 
master. " These children," she said, with a voice only half articulate, " never shall 
be slaves." "Never mind about that,'''' said Woolfolk, " go and get ready ; I shall 
only wait a few minutes longer." She retired with her cliildren ; the two white 
men continued alone ; they waited — she returned not : they grew tired of waiting, 
and followed her to her chamber ; there they found their victims beyond tlie reach 
of human wickedness, bedded in their blood. Charles Stuart. 



LETTER TO MR. TAPPAN. 

From Mississippi. — I have studied the state of things here now for years, coolly and 
deliberately, — as I was passing by a cotton field, where about fifty negroes were at 
work, I heard the driver with a rough oath, order one that was near him, who 
seemed to be laboring to the extent of his power, to " lie down." In a moment he 
was obeyed ; and he commenced whipping tlie offender upon liis naked back, and 
continued to the amount of about twenty laslies, with a heavy raw-hide whip, the 
crack of which might have been heard more than half a mile. Nor did the females 
escape. For although I stopped scarcely fifteen minutes, no less then three were 
whipped in the same manner; and tliat so severely, I was strongly inclined to 
interfere. 

You may be assured, sir, that I remained not immoved. I could no longer look on 
such cruelty ; but turned away and rode on while the echoes of the lash were rever- 
berating in the woods around me. f~!uch scenes have long since become familiar to 
me. But then the full effect was not lost ; and I shall never forget to my latest day, 
the mingled feelings of pity, horror, and indignation, that took possession of my mind. 
I involuntarily exclaimed, O God of my fathers! how dost thou permit such things 
to defile our land ! be merciful to us ! and visit us not in justice for all our iniquities 
and the iniquities of our fathers ! 

As I passed on 1 soon found that I had escaped from one horrible scene only to 
witness another. A planter with whom I was well acquamted, had caught a negro 
without a pass. And at the moment I was passing by, he was in the act of fasten- 
ing his feet and hands to the trees, having previously made him take off all liis 
clothing except his trowsers. When he had sufficiently secured this poor creature, 
he beat him for several minutes with a green switch more than six feet long : while 
he was writhing with anguish, endeavoring in vain to break the cords with which 
he was bound, and incessantly crying out. Lord, master ! Do pardon me this time ! 
Do, master, have mercy ! These expressions have recurred to me a thousand times 
since, and although they came from one, that is not considered among the sons of 
men, yet I think they are well worthy of remembrance, as they might lead a wise 
man to consider whether such shall receive mercy from the righteous Judge, as never 
showed mercy to their fellow men. 

At length I arrived at the dwelling of a planter of my acquaintance with whom I 
passed the night. At about eight o'clock in the evening I heard the barking of 
several dogs, mingled with the most agonizing cries that I ever heard from any 



136 LETTER TO MR. TAPPAN. 

human being. Soon after, the gentleman came in, and began to apologize, by say- 
ing that two of his runaway slaves had just been brought home, and as he had 
previously tried every species of punishment upon them without etiect, he knew not 
what else to add except to set his bloodhounds upon tliem. "And," continued he, 
"one of them has been so badly bitten that he has been trying to die. I am only 
sorry that he did not ; for then I should not have been further troubled with him. 
If he live?!, I intend to send liim to Natchez or to New Orleans to work with the ball 
and chain." 

From this last remark I understood that private individuals have the right of thus 
subjecting their unmanageable slaves. I have since seen numbers of these " ball 
and chain" men, both in Natchez and New Orleans, but I do not know whether 
there were any among them except the state convicts. 

As the summer was drawing towards a close, and the yellow fever beginning to 
prevail in town, I went to reside some months in the country. Tliis was the cotton 
picking season, during which the planters say, there is a greater necessity for flog- 
ging than at any other time. And I can assure you that as I have set in my window 
night after night wliile the cotton was being weighed, I have heard the crack of the 
whip, without much intermission, for a whole hour, from no less than three planta- 
tions, some of which were a full mile distant. 

I found that the slaves were kept in the field from daylight until dark, and then 
if they had not gathered, what the master or overseer thought sufficient, they were 
subjected to the lash. 

Many, by such treatment ; are induced to run away and take up their lodging in 
the woods. I do not say that all who run away are thus closely pressed. But I do 
know that many are ; and I have known no less than a dozen desert at a time from 
the same plantation, in consequence of the overseer's forcing them to work to the 
extent of their power, and then whipping them for not having done more. 

But suppose that they run away — what is to become of them in the forest ? If 
they cannot steal, they must perish of hunger — if the nights are cold, their feet will 
be frozen ; for if they make a fire they may be discovered, and be shot at. If they 
attempt to leave the country, their chance of success is about nothing. They must 
return, be whipped — if old offenders, wear the collar, perhaps be branded, and fare 
worse than before. 

Do you believe it, sir, not six months since, I saw a number of my Christian 
neighbors, packing up provisions, asl supposed, for a deer hunt; but as 1 was about 
offering myself to the party, I learned that their powder and balls were destined to 
a very different purpose ; it was, in short, the design of the party to bring home a 
number of runaway slaves, or to shoot them if they should not be able to get posses- 
sion of them in any other w'ay. 

You will ask, is not this murder ? Call it, sir, by what name you please, such 
are the fact- — many are shot every year ; and that too while the masters say they 
treat their slaves well. 

But let me turn your attention to another species of cruelty. About a year since, 
I knew a certain slave who had deserted his master, to be caught and for the first 
night fastened in the stocks. In those same stocks from which at midnight I have 
heard cries of distress, while the master slept, and was dreaming perhaps of drink- 
ing wine and of discussing the price of cotton. On the next morning he was chained 
in an immoveable posture, and branded in both cheeks, with red hot stamps of iron. 
Such are the tender mercies of men who love wealth, and are determined to obtain 
it at any price. 

Suffer me to add Another to the list of enormities, and I will not offend you with 
more. 

There was, some time since, brought to trial in this town, a planter residing about 
fifteen miles distant, for whipping his slave to death. You will suppose of course 
that he was punished. No, sir, he was acquitted, although there could be no doubt 
of the fact. I heard the tale of murder from a man who was acquainted with all the 
circumstances. " I was," said he, " passing along the road near the burying ground 
of the plantation, about nine o'clock at night, when I saw several lights gleamin" 
through the woods — and as I approached, in order to see what was doing, I beheld 
the coroner of Natcliez with a number of men, standing around the body of a young 
female, which by ihe torches seemed almost perfectly white. On inquiry I learned 
that the master had so unmercifully beaten this girl that she died under the opera- 



CASES OF CRUELTY. 137 

tion. And that also he liad so severely punished another of his slaves that he was 

but just alive. 

But, sir, you must not suppose that there are no laws for the protection of the 
slave. There are such laws; but of what avail they are, I have not yet been able 
to understand. It has always appeared to me that the masters are as independent 
as though there were no other beings in the creation but their slaves and themselves. 
And you know, sir, how dangerous it would be to entrust unlimited power to any 
set of men — however upright they might be at the time — for they would be sure to 
abuse it, especially if it had reference entirely to their own interest. 

Yet these men say they treat their slaves well ! It is folly to use words without 
meaning ; but I fear, that, in this polite age, we use too many words in a sense 
altogether different from their right meaning. I have seen hundreds of slaves 
treated as my cattle and horses shall never be treated with my consent. I do not 
pretend to say, that every one is branded with red hot irons, that every one is shot, 
or that half of them are whipped to death. But I know that some of them are, and 
I doubt not but thousands of such cases have occured, and will occur again if this 
system of oppression is not broken up. 

And what is the exact number of such deeds that it is necessary to present in 
order to persuade the people of Nevv England that slavery in this country is opposed 
to humanity and the spirit of the gospel? I am told that they are in the habit of 
considering these enormities as exceptions to the general treatment. Let them be 
called exceptions, or by any other name in the English language, enough of them 
have already defiled the land to condemn slavery for ever. How many murders is 
it necessary should occur on the high seas to make the term piracy apply with pro- 
priety to such deeds? If the crew of any vessel plunders another crew of all their 
effects, murders the captain and some of the men, and treat the remainder well, by 
putting them to sea in an open boat, after having given them each a hundred lashes, 
shall not these plunderers be called pirates — because they will not kill the whole, 
but treated a part ivell ? 

By this example you may understand what is meant by good treatment to slaves. 
It is not treating them so badly as they might be treated, but only giving them a 
hundred lashes each to show them the value of disciphne — plundering them of all 
the avails of their labor, because they might in their ignorance make a bad use of 
their money — depriving them of intellectual and moral instruction, out of a tender 
regard to their happiness — and depriving them of their liberty, because they are 
ignorant and totally unfit to have justice done them? 

The truth is, there is no possible way of treating slaves well. The root of the tree 
is most unholy, and all the branches will ever be unalloyed iniquity. Then pluck 
it up by the roots; better that a little soil should be somewhat moved for a time, 
than that pestilence and death should devour millions of human beings. And the 
longer it is delayed the firmer will it be fixed in the earth, and the further the 
branches extend, the more effectually will they shut out the light of Heaven. Can- 
not justice be done in Christian America, as well as in barbarous Africa ? For 
fifteen years Africa has been looked to by many great and good men as the only 
hope of the oppressed. But fifteen years has reheved but three thousand, while 
more than half a million have been born to servitude. — Letter to Mr. Tappanfrom 
J^atchez, 1833. 



CASES OF CRUELTY. 

A cler^man of Kentucky declared that he had seen a master whip repeatedly 
i. female slave who was upwards of eighty years old, and who had been this mas- 
ter's 'mammy,' that is, had nursed him at her breast in his infancy. 

A gentleman who has been in North Carolina, has seen a. female slave, who com- 
plained of illness, and refused to work, struck with the blade of a paddle, twelve or 
fifteen blows. I'wo hours after tliis treatment she was confined. The same gen- 
tleman saw a free negro tied to a tree, and a ncgress slave, who was attached to 
him, ordered to whip him. She refused, saying she loved him too well. The white 
men then tied her up and gave her ' five.' This overcame her resolution, and she 
consented to whip the man. — Francis Standin. 

In derision, this tree was called " the Lafayette tree." The secret of this affair 

18 



138 PROM FLORIDA. 

was, that the negress had been the mistress of one of these whites. Yet we are 
told by Murat, that whites are elevated too much above negroes to feel resentment 
or revenge towards them. 

The Duke of Saxe V/eimar states that a female slave was whipped at New 
Orleans by her mistress, that her lover was compelled to stand by and count ofTthe 
lashes, arid that she was afterwards pub-licly whipped by the magistrate. Her 
offence was, that, being engaged in some other duty, she had not started quite as 
quick to bring water to a lodger as he thought she should do. He stiuck her a 
blow in the face which made the blood run, and she, in sudden heat and resentment, 
seized him by the throat. 

Mr. William Ladd, known as a friend of colonization, and an opponent of Anti- 
Slavery Societies, and not likely, therefore, to exaggerate, but rather to soften the 
harsh features of the system, alludes pubUcly to the following, among other horrors 
which he has witnessed : A gentleman of his acquaintance, was offended with a 
female slave. He seized her by the arm, and thrust her hand into the fire, and 
there he held it until it was burnt off. ' I saw,' said Mr. Ladd, ' the withered stump.' 
— Mdress at Colonization Society of Massachusetts, 1833. 

" Mr Sutcliff, an English Gluaker, who travelled in tliis country, relates a case 
very like that of the Kentucky girl, only that the catastrophe was more shocking. 
A slave owner, near Lcwistown, in the state of Delaware, lost a piece of leather. 
He charged a little slave boy with stealing it. The boy denied. The master tied 
the boy's feat, and suspended him from the limb of a tree, attaching a heavy weight 
to his ancles, as is usual in such cases, to prevent such kicking and writhing a3 
would break the blows. He then whipped ; the boy confessed ; and then he com- 
menced whipping anew for the offence itself. He was a kind master, and never 
whipped the lad again, for he died under the lash ! Then the slaveholder's own son, 
smitten with remorse, acknowledged that he took the leather. 

" An honorable friend, who stands high in the state and in the nation, was pre- 
sent at the burial of a female slave in Mississippi, who had been whipped to death 
at the post by her master, because she was gone longer of an errand to the neigh- 
boring town, than her master thought necessary. Under the lash she protested that 
she was ill, and was obliged to rest in the fields. To complete the climax of horror, 
she was delivered of a dead infant before her master had completed his work !" 

Child's Despotism of Freedom. 



From Florida. — In speaking of slavery as it is, I hardly know where to begin. 
I consider the physical sufferings of the slaves as by no means the greatest evil of 
slavery. The contemplation of the laws of most of the southern states, which 
consign the mind of the colored man to endless night, and which leave no measures 
untried to sink him to a level with the brute, awakens in me stronger indignation 
than his groans under the lash. But the physical condition of the slave is far from 
being accurately known at the North. Gentlemen travelling in the South can know 
nothing of it. They must make the South their residence; they must live on plan- 
tations before they can have any opportunity of judging of tlie condition of the slave. 
r^^^\, I resided in Augustine five months, and had I not made particular inquiries, which 

JR^' most northern visiters very seldom or never do, I should have left there with the 

^^ impression that the slaves were generally very tvell treated, and were a happy 

people. Such is the report of many northern travellers who have no more opportu- 
nity of knowing their real condition than if they had remained at home. What 
confidence could we place in the report of the traveller, relative to the condition of 
the Irish peasantry, who formed his opinion from the appearance of the waiters at a 
Dublin hotel, or the household servants of a country gentleman? And it is not 
often on plantations even, that sti-angers can witness the punishment of the slave. 
I was conversing the other day wuth a neighboring planter, upon the brutal treat- 
ment of the slaves which I had witnessed : he remarked, that had I been with him 
I should not have seen this. " When I whip niggers, I take them out of sight and 
hearing of the house, and no one in 7ny family knows it. I would not on any con- 
sideration harden and brutalize the minds of my children by suffering them to 
witness a negro whipping." Such being the difficulties in the way of a stranger's 
ascertaining the treatment of the slaves, it is not to be wondered at, that gentlemen 
of undoupted veracity, should give directly false statements relative to it But facta 



FROM FLORIDA. 139 

cannot lie, and in giving these I confine myself to what has come under my own 
personal observation. Yet I hoped to have found the facts exaggerated. I had 
heard of females stripped and exposed to the insulting gaze and cruel lash of the 
driver. I have seen a woman, a mother, compelled in the presence of her master 
and mistress, to hold up her clothes, and endure the whip of the driver on the naked 
body for more than twenty minutes, and while her cries would have rent the heart 
of any one, who had not hardened himself to human suffering. Her master and 
misfress were conversing with apparent indifference. What was her crime? She 
had a task given her of sewing which she must finish that day. Late at night she 
finished it ; but the stitches were too long, and she must be whipped. The same 
was repeated three or four nights for the same offence. ] had heard of the whipping- 
post, and the extent of its use. I have seen a man tied to a tree, hands and feet, 
and receive tliree hundred and five blows with the paddle, [a piece of oak timber 
three and a half feet long, fiat and wide at one end,] on the fleshy parts of the 
body. Two others received the same kind of punishment at the time, though I did 
not count the blows. One received two hundred and thirty lashes. Their crime 
was stealing. One of them had asked for meat, saying that he could not work 
without it. He was refused the meat, and with a few others killed and secreted a 
hog of his master's. They had nearly finished the pork, when it was found, and 
being charged with stealing it, they did not deny it, but one of them remarked with 
unusual firmness, that he must have meat, he could not work on [corn] bread. 
(His master owns from eighty to one hundred hogs.) I have frequently heard the 
shrieks of the slaves, male and female, accompanied by the strokes of the paddle or 
whip, when I have not gone near the scene of horror. I knew not their crimes, 
excepting of one woman, which was stealing/owr potatoes to eat with her bread ! So 
much have I seen on one plantation. Qf the general treatment of the slaves, I can 
judge only from a few facts which I accidentally learn. Masters are not forward 
to publish their "domestic regulations," and as neighbors are usually several miles 
apart, one's observation must be limited. Hence the few instances of cruelty vyhich 
break out can be but a fraction of what is practised. A planter, a professor of reh- 
eion, in conversation upon the universality of whipping, remarked that " a planter 

m G , who had whipped a great deal, at length got tired of it, and invented the 

following excellent method of punishment, which I saw practised while 1 was paying 
him a visit. The negro was placed in a sitting position, with his hands made fast 
above his head, and feet in the stocks, so that he could not move any part of the 
body. The master retired, intending to leave him till morning, but we were 
awakened in the night by the groans of the negro, which were so doleful that we 
feared he was dying. We went to him, and found him covered with a cold sweat, 

and almost gone. ^He could not have lived an hour longer. Mr. found the 

'stocks' such an effective punishment, that it almost superseded the wliip." 

I do not believe tliere have been five slaves freed in Florida since its cession to the 
United States. The Spanish laws favored emancipation, but as one old negro 
expressed it, "Nobody gets free since Spanish times." The laws of Florida, sanc- 
tioned hj the United Utates general government, forbid emancipation. I mentioned to 
one negro that I had heard of a man in East Florida who allowed his slaves wages, 
and when they amounted to his price and interest, the slaves were fiee ; says he, 
"that man was no American, I reckon. He must have been a Yankee or a 
Spaniard." 

Another instrument of torture is sometimes used, how extensively I know not. 
The negro, or, in the case which came to my knowledge, the negress was compelled 
to stand barefoot upon a block filled with sharp pegs and nails for two or three hours. 
In case of sickness, if the master or overseer thinks them seriously ill, they are taken 
care of, but their complaints are usually not much heeded. A physician told me 
Ihat he was emploved by a planter last winter to go to a plantation of lus m the 
country, as many of the neoroes were sick. Says he — " I found them in a most 
misLM-alile condition. The weather was cold, and the negroes were barefoot with 
hardlv enough of cotton clothing to cover their nakedness. Those who had huts to 
shelter them were obliged to build them iiiohts and Sundays. Many were sick and 
some had died. I had the sick taken to an older plantation of their master's, where 
they could be- made comfortable, and they recovered. I directed that they should 
not go to work till after sunrise, and should not work in the rain till their health 
became established. But tiie overseer refusing to permit it, I declined attending on 



140 ASA A. STONE. 

them further." " I was called," continued he, " by the overseer of another plantation, 
to see one of the men. I found him lying by the side of a log in great pain. I 
asked him how he did, ' O,' says he, ' I'm most dead, can live but little longer.' 
How long have you been sick? 'I've felt for more than six weeks as though I 
could hardly stir.' Why didn't you tell your master you was sick? 'I couldn't 
see my master, and the overseer always whips us when we complain. I could not 
stand a whipping.' I did all I could tor the poor fellow, but his lungs were rotten. 
He died in three days from the time he left off work." The cruelty of that overseer 
is such that the negroes almost tremble at his name. Yet he gets a high salary, for 
he makes the largest crop of any other man in the neighborhood, though none but 
the hardiest negroes can stand it under him. " That man," says the doctor, " would 
be hung in my country" [Germany]. — Letters to the Editor of the Ohio Atlas, from 
Tallahassee, Florida, May, 1835 



ASA A. STONE. 

Natchez, May 24, 1835. 

No one here thinks that the slaves are seldom over-driven and under-fed. Every 
body knows it to be one of the most common occurrences. The planters do not 
deny it, except perhaps to Northerners, whom they take to be uninformed on the 
subject — or when on some particular occasion they wish to carry a point. True, 
they try to make the thing appear as fair as possible, and are in the habit of holding 
it up to themselves and others in its most favorable light. But then, no planter of 
intelligence and candor denies that slaves are very generally badly treated in this 
country. I wish to be understood now at the commencement, that intending as I 
do that my statements shall be relied on, and knowing that, should you think fit to 
publish this communication, they will come to this country, where their correctness 
may be tested by comparison with real life, I make them with tlie utmost care and 
preca\ition. But those which I do make are made without the least apprehension 
of their being controverted. It occurs to me that perhaps one reason why the public 
mind at the North is no more satisfied on this subject is, that the facts and state- 
ments respecting slavery at the South have not been of a sufficiently general appli- 
cation. Particular instances of hard-driving, ill-feeding, severe-flogging, and other 
cruelties have been given without making any statements from which a definite 
conception of the extent and frequency of such treatment could be formed. I hope 
to avoid this, and to give such facts as will enable you to form a correct, and as far 
as may be, an accurate idea of slavery as it really exists in the Southwest. 

It is seen here undoubtedly in its worst form in the United States, and I shall not 
vouch for the correctness of my statements when E»pplied to any other section than 
this — sa}' the four states of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Portions 
of the northern parts of the two tbrmer states might also be excepted. 

A few days ago I was talking with an overseer of a plantation, the o vvner of which 
has universally the reputation of being a good master, and treating his slaves un- 
usually well in every respect. The slaves themselves testify to this, and they say 
that the overseer is not as hard as most of them are. This overseer, speaking of the 
work on the place, said, it was a little behind, but he was pushing the hands up to 
it. Says he — "I crowded them up to-day till some of tlie women fairly cried." 
And then added, "it is pretty severe." Meaning, not that it was severe compared 
with the ijeneral usage, but in itself considered — for he always represents himself as 
not h'vt : :is severe as most overseers. This same man, and many other overseers 
and o\s iifis, have told me that throughout the country, on plantations having fifty 
hands, the number of floggings during the press of hoeing and cotton picking, 
average one or two a day, and frequently fifteen or twenty are flogged at once, 
particularly in the time of cotton picking. My observations and inquiries on this 
subject have been such, that I feel no hesitation in saying that as a general thing 
there is at least the above number of floggings daily on plantations of that size, 
and this barely on the score of work. I ask, then, docs this look like not being 

"over-driven?" But to go more into particulars: Mr. , a planter who resides 

about fourtean miJea above Natchez, says, " They generally treat their slaves very 



ASA A. STONE. 141 

well in his neighborhood." Hear how. " On a plantation of fifty hands it is com- 
mon in cotton picking time to have a negro whipped every night, and frequently two 
or three, for not doing the required amount of work. I have myself whipped fourteen 
or fifteen of a night, or, rath'-r, had my driver do it. They always lie down and 
receive it on their bare back and buttock. If they are uneasy they are sometimes 
tied ; the hands and feet being stretched out to a stake driven for the purpose. But 
they are usually held by other negroes. In a bad case, one takes hold of each hand 
and each foot, and another holds or sits on his head. If they don't hold him well, 
give them a cut or two with the whip, and I warrant you they will hold him still 
enough if they have to take their teeth." So much lor the testimony of a planter 
with respect to the driving of slaves in a neighborhood where they are " very well 
treated." With regard to the process of getting slaves up to their ne-plus in cotton 
picking, the same man says : " There is no speciiied quantity which is required of 
each hand ; but measures are taken to find out how much each can do when put to 
his possibilities. Sometimes jil or some other prize is set up to the one who will 
pick most cotton in a day. A smaller prize is proposed to second rate hands, and 
so on. If this does not succeed with all, they are whipped up all day to make them 
do their best. When they think they have got a fellow up to liigh water mark, as it 
is called, they weigh the cotton he has picked during the day ; tlien they weigh it 
every night afterwards, and if he falls short any considerable amount, he is flosged. 
The number of lashes given is from thirty to two hundred." This is done wifh a 
whip from seven to nine ieet in length, made by plaiting leather over a short sock 
above two feet long, and then continued out into a long heavy lash. It is an instru- 
ment of terrible severity. Its crack can be heard distinctly from half a mile to a 
mile. The preceding iiicts and statements respect the general practice with regard 
to driving. There are many exceptions to the general rule on both sides ; some are 
much more mild and some as much more severe. As evidence of the latter, I will 
state one fact out of many within my knowledge, which, however, I did not receive 
from an overseer or owner. It came, however, from such a source that I have no 

doubt of its correctness. The overseer on Mr. 's plantation near Natchez, two 

or three years ago, found some difficulty in getting his hands to pick as much cotton 
in a day as he wished. Accordingly he took to the whip. He commenced on 
Wednesday and whipped all his hands, (about fifty,) twice round; Thursday he 
whipped them all three times ; and Friday he whipped them all once. Saturday 
he was absent. Monday he returned and whipped ten of tiiC hands once, and 
so tapered down to the common whipping level. Some few probably escaped 
some of the floggings each day ; but npt enough to be noticed by my informant in 
his statement, though he resided on the place at the time, and was intimately ac- 
quainted with the particulars. The floggings were regular, and of course ranged 
from thirty lashes upwards. 

And now, AJr. Editor, I leave you and your readers to judge whether the slaves 
at the South are over-driven, and whether this is the kind of usage that free laborers 
at the North would like to submit to. I now proceed to show that they are under- 
fed. But, in the first place, I will say that the stories that have been sometimes 
circulated at the North, about the planters at the South feeding their slaves on cot- 
ton seed, are all a humbug. There may have been some instances of the experi- 
ment's being tried ; but that it is commonly, oi- even occasionally brought into 
regular practice, is false. The general rule of feeding is to give just what will 
supply the demands of nature, and no more. Slaves are almost universally 
allowanced. Their rations are usually a peck of meal, and three or three and a 
half pounds of meat a week. This is dealt out on some plantations weekly, and 
on others daily : which is the more common practice, I am not L.ble to say. Some 
add a half pint or a pint of molasses a week. As a general thing, the bread stuflT 
is given them ground, and not whole, as has been sometimes represented. On 
most plantations there is a cook, who prepares their breakfast and dinner, which 
are always eaten in the field. Their suppers they prepare for themselves after they 
return from -work. Some allowance them only in meat, giving v.hat meal they 
want ; the general rule, however, is a peck of meal and three pounds of meat a 
week. This allowance is frequently very much shortened when corn or meet is 
scarce or high. So that on almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or less 
from hunger at some season of almost every year. I have conversed with some very 
candid slaves on this subject ; and they say that they can do very well on a peck 



142 ASA A. STONE. 

of meal and three and a half pounds of meat a week, except in the winter, when 
their appetites are keener, and crave particularly more meat. This accords with 
universal experience. The appetite is always keener, particularly for flesh, in cold 
weather than in hot. They say, moreover, that they by no means always get their 
full allowance, and that they often suffer much from hunger. The truth of this I 
could establish by a multitude of facts from various sources. But aside from the 
occasional underfeeding that takes place on most plantations, there are many who 
are notorious as overdrivers and underfeeders, and are talked about as such : so 
that if the northern folks deny that this is often the case, they deny what their bet- 
ter informed neighbors at the South openly talked about as notorious. Why, a few 
days ago I heard a planter and his wife talking about the health of a neighboring 
plantation. The lady entertained the opinion that it was sickly, and as evidence 
mentioned the large number of negroes that died during last summer. The gentle- 
man replied, that " it was no wonder, the owner starved them so much. His prin- 
ciple was, if he had not corn enough, to make it last." And this 1 know to be a 
principle very extensively acted upon. Here I would remark, that such facts as 
these are constantly coming to light in multitudes, from the every day conversation 
of planters. In Louisiana, the treatment of slaves, in almost all respects, is doubt- 
less worse than in any other part of the United States. There, short feeding is very 
common. And it is true, that among the old French planters, the corn, instead of 
being ground, is given out in the ear, and the slaves left to dispose of it as they 
can. They are also in many cases allowed no meat, but Irave Saturday afternoon 
for fishing, &c., when the work is not too crowding to forbid it. This, however, is 
very common ; and then — yes, and then — " what must poor nigger do ?" I will 
mention a fact to illustrate this statement. It was lold me by the-captain of a boat 
with whom I am well acquainted, and whom I know to be a man of genuine 
integrity. He was passing down the Mississippi with a flat boat load of pork. 
As he was floating along the levee near the shore, between Baton Rouge and JVew 
Orleans, he saw a negro whose emaciated countenance and downcast look attracted 
his attention. He hailed him and entered into conversation with him. Among 
other things he asked him where he was from. "O master," says he, "thank God, 
from good old Kentucky." " Had you rather live in Kentucky than here ?" " Oh 
yes, master, there I had plenty to eat, but here I am most starved. I have not 
tasted meat for months." By this time several others had made their appearance, 
who joined the first in his testimony about starvation. The captain now com- 
menced throwing out a few joints and other bit^ of not much account, for their 
relief. On seeing tiiis, several others ran down from the neighboring quarters to 
share the spoils. But scarce had they reached the levee, when a white man 
appeared also, raving and swearing most furiously, and seizing a club about the size 
and length of a common hoop pole, he commenced mauling them over the head with 
all his might. Two or three he knocked down on the spot, and others escaped 
severely wounded. It is not from such isolated facts as these that 1 draw my con- 
clusions respecting tlie commonness of bad feeding : I mention this to give a speci- 
men of the nature and extent of the suffering. It is from other data that 1 judge 
of its prevalence. I will now give a brief i-ecapitulation. On a few plantations 
there is no suffering for want of food, such as it is, though on all it is so coarse and 
so unvaried, that the poorest laborers at the North would most bitterly complain oi' 
it. On the majority of plantations, the feeding supplies the demands of nature 
tolerably well, except in the winter, and at some other occasional times. There is 
always a good deal of .suffering on them from hunger in the course of the year. 
On many plantations, and particularly in Louisiana and among the French planters, 
the slaves are in a condition of ahnost utter famishment during a great portion of 
the year. And now, I ask, are not the slaves also underfed ? Let a man pass 
through the plantations where they fare best, and see fifty or sixty hands, men and 
women, sitting right down on the furrows where their food cart happens to overtake 
them, and making their meal of a bit of corn bread and water, and he will think it 
is rather hard fare. This is not unfrequently the case on plantations where they are 
considered well fed. For it will be seen that three and a half pounds of meat vvould 
allow but a very small slice if used at every meal. But let us look at it in its best 
form. A bit of corn bread, three ounces of meat, and a little molasses. And this, 
morning, noon, and night — night, noon, and morning. Suppose a contractor on 
one of our northern canals or rail roads were to give his hands this fare, wha', 



ASA A. STONE. 143 

would be the consequence ? Why they would very probably take the contractor, 
give him a sound flogging, tar and feather him, and quit his employ. Every body 
knows that such a contractor could get nobody to work for him. But " the southern 
slaves are better off than northern free laborers." The proof is above. 

I will now say a few words about treatment and condition in general. That flog- 
ging is very common and severe, appears IVom what has been already said. But 
those facts were given only in connexion with labor. The picture is not finished. 
I must now say that floggings for all offences, including deficiencies in work, are 
frightfully common and most terribly severe. How much is to be added for miscel- 
laneous floggings, to the amount of floggings already stated, cannot be said with 
any degree of precision. There must of course be a very considerable accession. 
An overseer from Louisiana says, " On many of the plantations in Louisiana, (and 
he specified several and gave particulars,) the masters are drunken tyrants, and 
whip their negroes for the slightest oflences, not nnfrequently just for the sake of 
whipping them, if they can find no other occasion. Their field hands, with few 
exceptions, are whipped all round as often as once a week. They say they will 
get ugly if they are not whipped as often as that." This is said of those who are 
particularly severe : though he says there are many of them. Wow with respect to 
the general rule. He says, that " on plantations in Louisiana having fifty hands, 
the average number of whippings during the whole cotton growing and cotton pick- 
mg season," (wliich lasts from April to December,) " is from one to five or six of 
a day and night." I was careful to inake such inquiries into particulars, as to be 
satisfied that his statements could in the main be relied on. I have since had their 
truth corroborated from other sources. This overseer plumes himselt'on being able 
to manage negroes with but little whipping. He had twenty-two hands, and he 
says he did not whip more than twelve or fifteen times during picking season. He 
told me of whipping "one resolute fellow" at the commencement of picking. It 
was for stealing a few pounds of cotton to put in his daily mess. He first paddled 
him with a handsaw till he blistered him thoroughly, then whipped him, he thought, 
about 150 lashes, and wound up by rubbing him with salt. Rubbing with salt and 
red pepper is very common after a severe whipping. The object, they say, is pri- 
marily to make it smart ; but add, that it is the best thing that can be done to pre- 
vent morfification and make the gashes heal. Tliis .lenient man gave me another 
instance of his whipping. The subject was a woman. He says he alternately 
paddled with a handsaw, whipped, and talked, for about four hours. He paddled 
her on her buttock and the soles of her feet, and gave her he does not know how 
man}' hundred lashes. I will state one or two more facts, to show more clearly the 
occasions of floggings, and the manner and severity with which they are given. 
Last summer, the nurse of a family with whom I am very well acquainted was, for 
some misdemeanor, put into the stocks and kept there all night. The next morn- 
ing, feeling more sulky than subdued, she took occasion to throw a large dish of 
water on one of the children. The master was enraged — sent for four hands from 
the quarters — had her tied down, and the master's daughter, who gave me the 
information, says she counted 250 lashes. A few days ago the mistress, who is a 
respectable member of the Presbyterian church in Natchez, fancied that this same 
nurse made too free in correcting the children. She flew into a passion — seized the 
broomstick — struck her three times over the head, and broke it. She then snatched 
up a pine stick, about an inch square and three feet long — struck her three times 
over the head with that, and broke it. Such occurrences as these are abundant. 
Northern free house servants would hardly be willing to exchange tlieir present 
treatment for such usage. 

The clothing of slaves is about on a par with their food. It is of the coarsest 
articles, and very scanty in amount. However, most of them are clothed. Yet in 
the worst parts of Louisiana it is not an uncommon thing to see Isands working in 
the field, almost or entirely naked. Their general style of living at home is in 
keeping with their (bod and clothing. You will generally find one family occupying 
a room about twelve or fourteen f;'et square. In this are two old crazy bedsteads. 
Sometimes having on them an old dirty mattress or straw bed ; sometimes a nest 
of old, ragged, dirty blankets ; sometimes a little loose hay or straw, and sometimes 
nothing at all. The rest of the room is occupied by a rickety table, a few old stools, 
boxes, baskets, pots, &c. Chairs are seldom found. You may go to twenty 
cabins, and not find half a dozen. The very worst holes you can find in the city 



144 BURNING MEN IN ARKANSAS SCENE IN GEORGIA. 

of New York are good specimens of a slave's home. That any southern man 
should ever represent the condition of the colored people at the North as worse 
than that of the slaves at the South, I am perfectly astonished. With the condition 
of the colored people in several of the northern cities I am well acquainted, by per- 
sonal observation and by report. I am considerably acquainted with it in many 
others, and I hesitate not to say, that the condition of free people of color in every 
northern city, is far superior to that of the slaves in the southwest. 

But, dear sir, I have not yet come to the bad part of slavery. What you have 
heard as yet is tolerably sood — comparatively. It is in the intellectual and moral 
condition of slaves that you behold the most hideous features of slavery. On the 
plantation where I now reside, there arc about 100 persons above the age of twelve 
years, not a soul of whom can read or vvi-ite. The same is the case with a large 
proportion of the plantations throughout the country. I am perfectly safe in saying 
tiiat, including house servants and all, both in town and country, there is not one 
in fifty of the slave population of the southwest that can read or write. Their 
ignorance on all subjects, especially moral and religious, is astonishing and deplora- 
ble. May the Lord bless your efforts to bring the slaves of the South into as 
happy a condition as the " free laborers of the North." — Letter to Rev. J. Leavitt. 



Burning men in ^irkansas. — The slave William, who murdered his master some 
weeks since (Huskey), and several negroes, was taken by a party a few days since, 
from the sheriff at Hot Spring, and burnt alive ! yes, tied up to the limb of a tree, 
a fire built under him, and consumed in slow and lingeiing torture! 

The circumstances of this criminal outrage are aggravated by the fact, that the 
evidence against the negro was of such a character, that there was no chance of his 
escape from a just expiation of his crime by law. — Jirkansas Gazette. 



Scene in Georgia. — On the morning of the execution, my master told me and all 
the rest of his people, that wc must go to the hanging, as it was termed by him as 
well as others. The place of punishment was only two miles from my master's 
residence, and I was there in time to get a good stand near the gallows tree ; by 
which I was enabled to see all the proceedings connected with this solemn affair. 
It was estiinated by my master, that there were at least fifteen .thousand people 
present at this scene, more than half of whom were blacks ; all the masters for a 
great distance round the country having permitted or compelled their people to come 
to this hanging. 

Billy was brought to the gallows with Lucy and Frank ; but was permitted to 
walk beside the cart in which they rode. Under the gallows, after the rope was 
about her neck, Luc}' confessed that the murder had been designed by her in the 
first place, and that Frank had only perpetrated it at her instance. She said she 
had at first intended to apply to Billy to assist her in the undertaking ; but had 
afterwards communicated her designs to Frank, who offired to shoot her master, if 
she would supply him with a gun, and let no other person be in the secret. A long 
sermon was preached by a white man under the gallows, which was only the limb 
of a tree, and afterwards an exhortation was delivered b)' a black one. The two 
convicts were hung together ; and after they were quite dead, a consultation was 
Iield amongst the gentlemen, as to the future disposition of Billy, who, having been 
in the house where his master was murdered, and not having given immediate 
information of the fact, was held to be guilty of concealing the death ; and was 
accordingly sentenced to receive five hundred lashes. I was in t!ie branches of a 
tr(?p, close by the place where this court was held, and distinctly heard its proceed- 
mgs and judgment. Some went to the woods to cut hickories, whilst others strip- 
ped Billy and lied him to a tree. More than twenty long switches, some of them 
six or seven feet in length, had been procured ; and two men applied the rods at the 
same time, one standing on each side of the culprit ; one of them using his left 
hand. I had often seen black men whipped, and had always, where the lash was 
apphed with great severity, heard the sufferer cry out and beg for mercy ; but in 
this case, the pain inflicted by these double blows of the hickory was so intense, that 



SCENE IN GEORGIA. 145 

Billy never uttered so much as a groan ; and I do not believe he breathed for the 
space of two minutes after he received the first strokes. He shrunk his body close 
to the trunk of the tree, around which his arms and legs were lashed ; drew his 
shoulders up to his head like a dying man, and trembled, or rather shivered, in all 
his members. The blood flowed from the commencement, and in a few minutes 
lay in small puddles at the root of the tree. I saw flakes of flesh as long as my 
finger fall out of the gashes in his back ; and I believe he was insensible during all 
the time that he was receiving the last two hundred lashes. When the whole five 
hundred had been counted by the person appointed to perform this duty, the half- 
dead body was unbound and laid in the shade of the tree upon which 1 sat. The 
gentlemen who had done the whipping, eight or ten in number, being joined by 
their friends, then came under the tree, and drank punch until their dmner waa 
made ready, under a booth of green boughs at a short distance. 

After dinner, Billy, who had been groaning on the ground where he was laid, 
was taken up, placed in the cart in which Lucy and Frank had been brought to the 
gallows, and conveyed to the dwelling of his late master, where he was confined to 
the house and his bed more than three months, and was never worth much after- 
wards, while I remained in Georgia. 

Certainly those who were hanged well deserved their punishment, but it was a 
very arbitrary exercise of power to whip a man until he was insensible, because he 
did not prevent a murder which was committed without his knowledge ; and I 
could not understand the right of punishing him because he was so weak or timor- 
ous, as to refrain from a disclosure of the crime the moment it came to liis ears. — 

Life of Charles BalL 



19 



THE AFRICAN CHARACTER. 



MUNGO PARK. 

I was fully convinced, that whatever difference there is between the 
negro and the European, in the conformation of the nose, and the 
color of the skin, there is none in the genuine sympathies and charac- 
teristic feehngs of our common nature. 

[At Sego, in Bambarra, the king, being jealous of Mr. Park's in- 
tentions, forbade him to cross the river. Under these discouraging 
circumstances, he was advised to lodge at a distant village ; but there 
the same distrust of the white man's purposes prevailed, and no per- 
son would allow hiin to enter his house. He says,] I was regarded 
with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without 
food, under the shade of a tree. The wind rose, and there was great 
appearance of a heavy rain, and the wild beasts are so very numerous 
in the neighborhood, that I should have been under the necessity of 
resting among the branches of the tree. About sunset, however, as 
I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my 
horse loose, that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from 
the labors of the field, stopped to observe me. Perceiving that I was 
weary and dejected, she inquired into my situation, which I briefly 
explained to her ; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she 
took up my saddle and bridle and told me to follow her. Having 
conducted me into her hut, sne lighted a lamp, spread a mat on the 
floor, and told me 1 might remain there for the night. Finding that 
I was hungry, she went out, and soon returned with a very fine fish, 
which being broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. 
The women then resumed their task of spinning cotton, and lightened 
their labor with songs, one of which must have been composed ex- 
tempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of 
the young women, the rest joining in a kind of chorus. The air was 
sweet and plaintive, and the words literally translated, were these : 

" The winds roar'd, and the rains fell ; 
The poor white man, faint and weary, 
Came and sat under our tree. — 
He has no mother to bring him milk ; 
No wife to grind his corn. 

CHORUS. 

" Let us pity the white man ; 

No mother has he to bring him milk. 

No wife to grind his corn." 

Trifling as this recital may appear, the circumstance was highly 
affecting to a person in my situation. I was oppressed with such 
unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning. 



MUNGO PARK. 147 

I presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass 
buttons remaining on my waistcoat ; the only recompense I could 
make her. 

[At Kamalia, he recovered from a fever, which had tormented him 
several weeks. His benevolent landlord came daily to inquire after 
his health, and see that he had every thing for his comfort. Mr. 
Park assures us that the simple and ati'ectionate manner of those 
around him contributed not a little to his recovery. He adds,] thus 
was I delivered, by the friendly care of this benevolent negro, from a 
situation truly deplorable. Distress and famine pressed hard upon 
me ; I had before me the gloomy wilderness of Jallonkadoo, where 
the traveller sees no habitation for five successive days. I had ob- 
served, at a distance, the rapid course of the river Kokaro, and had 
almost marked out the place where I thought I was doomed to perish, 
when this friendly negro stretched out his hospitable hand for my 
relief. Mr. Park having travelled in company with a coffle of thirty- 
five slaves, thus describes his feelings as they came near the coast : 
" Although I was now approaching the end of my tedious and toil- 
some journey, and expected in another day to meet with countrymen 
and friends, I could not part with my unfortunate fellow-travellers, — • 
doomed as I knew most of them to be, to a life of slavery in a foreign 
land, — without great emotion. During a peregrination of more than 
five hundred miles, exposed to the burning rays of a tropical sun, these 
poor slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater sufferings, would com- 
miserate mine, and frequently, of their own accord, bring water to 
quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves to prepare 
me a bed in the wilderness. We parted with mutual regret and bless- 
ings. My good wishes and prayers were all I could bestow upon 
them, and it afforded me some consolation to be told tliat they were 
sensible I had no more to give. 

All the negro nations that fell under my observation, though divided 
into a number of petty, independent states, subsist chiefly by the 
same means, live nearly in the same temperature, and possess a 
a wonderful similarity of disposition. The Mandingoes, in particular, 
are a very gentle race, cheerful, inquisitive, credulous, simple, and 
fond of flattery. Perhaps the most prominent defect in their character, 
was that insurmountable propensity, to steal from me the few effects I 
was possessed of. No complete justification can be offered for this 
conduct, because theft is a crime in their own estimation ; and it 
must be observed that they are not habitually and generally guilty of 
it towards each other. But before we pronounce them a more 
depraved people than any other, it were well to consider, whether the 
lower class of people in any part of Europe, would have acted under 
similar circumstances, with greater honesty towards a stranger. It 
must be remembered that the laws of the country afforded me no pro- 
tection ; that every one was permitted to rob me with impunity ; and 
that some part of my effects were of as great value in the estimation 
of the negroes, as pearls and diamonds would have been in the eyes 
of a European. Let us suppose a black merchant of Hindoostan had 



148 -MUNGd ?ARK. 

found his way into England, with a box of jewels at his back, and the 
laws of the kingdom afforded him no security — in such a case, the 
wonder would be, not that the stranger was robbed of any part of his 
riches, but that any part was left for a second depredator.* Such, on 
sober reflection, is the judgment I have formed concerning the pilfering 
disposition of the Mandingo negroes toward me. 

On the other hand, it is impossible for me to forget the disinterested 
charity, and tender solicitude, with which many of these poor hea- 
thens, from the sovereign of Sego, to the poor women who at different 
times received me into their cottages, sympathized with my sufferings, 
relieved my distress, and contributed to my safety. Perhaps this 
acknowledgment is more particularly due to the female part of the 
nation. Among the men, as the reader must have seen, my reception, 
though generally kind, was sometimes otherwise. It varied according 
to the tempers of those to whom 1 made application. Avarice in 
some, and bigotry in others, had closed up the avenues to compassion ; 
but I do not recollect a single instance of hard-hearted ness towards 
me in the women. In all my wanderings and wretchedness, I found 
them uniformly kind and compassionate ; and I can truly say, as Mr. 
Jjedyard has eloquently said before me — " To a woman I never ad- 
dressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without 
receiving a decent and friendly answer. If I was hungry or thirsty, 
wet or ill, they did not hesitate, like the men, to perform a generous 
action. In so free and so kind a manner did they contribute to my 
relief, that if I were thirsty, I drank the sweeter draught ; and if I 
were hungry, I ate the coarsest meal with a double relish." 

It is surely reasonable to suppose that the soft and amiable sympa- 
thy of nature, thus spontaneously manifested to me in my distress, is 
displayed by these poor people as occasion requires, much more 
strongly towards those of their own nation and neighborhood. Ma- 
ternal affection, neither suppressed by the restraints, nor diverted by 
the solicitudes of civilized life, is everywhere conspicuous among 
them, and creates reciprocal tenderness in the child. " Strike me," 
said a negro to his master, who spoke disrespectfully of his parent, 
*' but do not curse my mother." The same sentiment I found to 
prevail universally. 

I perceived, with great satisfaction, that the maternal solicitude 
extended not only to the growth and security of the person, but also, 
in a certain degree, to the improvement of the character ; for one of 
the first lessons which the Mandingo women teach their children, is 
the practice of truth. A poor unhappy mother, whose son had been 
murdered by a Moorish banditti, found consolation in her deepest 
distress from the reflection that her boy, in the whole course of his 
blameless life, had never told a lie. — Travels in Africa. 

Adanson, who visited Senegal, in 1754, describes the negroes as 
sociable, obhging, humane, hospitable. " Their amiable simplicity," 

* Or suppose a colored pedlar with valuable goods travelling in slave states, 
where the laws aflbrd little or no protection to negro property, what would probably 
be bis fate 7- -Ed. 



ALEXANDER H. EVERETT* 149 

says he, " in this enchanting country, recalled to me the idea of the 
primitive race of man ; I thought I saw the world in its infancy. 
They are distinguished by tenderness for their parents, and a great 
respect for the aged." Robin speaks of a slave at Martinico, who 
having gained money sufficient for his own ransom, preferred to pur- 
chase his mother's freedom. 

Proyart, in his history of Loango, acknowledges that the negroes 
on the coast, who associate with Europeans, are inclined to licentious- 
ness and fraud ; but he says those of the interior are humane, obliging, 
and hospitable. Golberry repeats the same praise, and rebukes the 
presumption of white men in despising " nations improperly called 
savage, among whom we find men of integrity, models of filial, con- 
jugal, and paternal affection, who know all the energies and refine- 
ments of virtue; among whom sentimental impressions are more deep, 
because they observe, more than we, the dictates of nature, and know 
how to sacrifice personal interest to the ties of friendship." 



ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. 

Sir, we are sometimes told that all these efforts will be unavaihng — 
that the African is a degraded member of the human family — that a 
man with a dark skin and curled hair, is necessarily, as such, inca- 
pable of improvement and civilisation, and condemned by the vice of 
his physical conformation, to vegetate for ever in a state of hopeless 
barbarism. Mr. President, I reject, with contempt and indignation, 
this miserable heresy. In replying to it, the friends of truth and hu- 
manity have not hitherto done justice to the argument. In order to 
prove that the blacks were capable of intellectual efforts, they have 
painfully collected a few imperfect specimens of what some of them 
have done in this way, even in the degraded condition which they 
occupy at present in Christendom. Sir, this is not the way to treat 
the subject. Go back to an earher period in the history of our race. 
See what the blacks were and what they did three thousand years 
ago, in the period of their greatness and glory, when they occupied 
the fore front in the march of civilization — when they constituted in 
fact the whole civilized world of their time. Trace this very civiliza- 
tion, of which we are so proud, to its origin, and see where you will 
find it. We received it from our European ancestors : they had it 
from the Greeks and Romans, and the Jews. But, Sir, where did 
the Greeks and the Romans and the Jews get it ? They derived it 
from Ethiopia and Egypt, — in one word, from Africa. Moses, we 
are told, was instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians. The 
founders of the principal Grecian cities, such as Athens, Thebes, 
and Delphi, came tiom Egypt, and for centuries afterwards, their de- 
scendants returned to that country, as the source and centre of civil- 
ization. There it was that the generous and stirring spirits of the 
♦ime — Herodotus, Homer, Plato, Pythagoras, and the rest, made 



150 ALEXANDER H. EVERETt. 

their noble voyages of intellectual and moral discovery, as ours now 
make them in England, France, Germany, and Italy. Sir, the Egypt- 
ians were the masters of the Greeks and the Jews, and consequently 
of all the modern nations in civilization, and they had carried it very 
nearly as far — in some respects, perhaps, a good deal further than 
any subsequent people. The ruins of the Egyptian temples laugh to 
scorn the architectural monuments of any other part of the world. 
They will be what they are now, the delight and admiration of travel- 
lers from all quarters, when the grass is growing on the sites of St. 
Peter's and St. Paul's, — the present pride of Rome and London. 

Well, Sir, who were the Egyptians I They were Africans : — and 
of what race ] — It is sometimes pretended, that though Africans, and 
of Ethiopian extraction, they were not black. But what says the 
father of history, who had travelled among them, and knew their 
appearance, as well as we know that of our neighbors in Canada 1 
Sir, Herodotus tells you that the Egyptians were blacks, with curled 
hair. Some writers have undertaken to dispute his authority, but I 
cannot bring myself to. believe that the father of history did not know 
black from white. It seems, therefore, that for this very civilization 
of which we are so proud, and which is the only ground of our present 
claim of superiority, we are indebted to the ancestors of these very 
blacks, whom we are pleased to consider as naturally incapable of 
civilization. 

So much for the supposed inferiority of the colored race, and their 
incapacity to make any progress in civilization and improvement. 
And it is worth while, Mr. President, to remark, that the prejudice 
which is commonly entertained in this country, but which does not 
exist to any thing like the same extent in Europe, against the color 
of the blacks, seems to have grown out of the unnatural position 
which they occupy among us. At the period to which I have just 
alluded, when the blacks took precedence of the whites in civilization, 
science, and political power, no such prejudice appears to have ex- 
isted. The early Greek writers speak of the Ethiopians and Egypt- 
ians as a superior variety of the species : — superior, not merely in 
intellectual and moral qualities, but what may seem to be much more 
remarkable, in outward appearance. The Ethiopians, says Hero- 
dotus, excel all other nations in longevity, stature, and personal beauty. 
The black prince, Memnon, who served among the Trojan auxiliaries 
at the siege of Troy, (probably an Egyptian prince) is constantly 
spoken of by the Greek and Latin writers, as a person of extraordi- 
nary beauty, and is qualified as the son of Aurora, or the morning. 
There are, in short, no traces of any prejudice, whatever, against the 
color of the blacks, like that which has grown up in modern times, 
and which is obviously the result of the relative condition of the two 
races. This prejudice forms at present, as was correctly observed 
by President Madison, in one of his speeches in the late Virginia 
Convention, the chief obstacle to the piactical improvement of the 
condition of that portion of them who reside in this country. — Speech 
at Mtusac^utetts Colonization Society, Feb. 7, 1833. 



I 



REV. R. WALSH ARCHBISHOP tHARP. ISl 



REV. R. WALSH. 

1 had been but a few hours on shore (at Rio Janeiro) for the first 
time, and I saw an African negro under four aspects of society ; and 
it appeared to me, that in every one, his character depended on the 
state in which he was placed, and the estimation in which he was held. 
As a despised slave, he was far lower than other animals of burden 
that surrounded him ; more miserable in his look, more revolting in 
his nakedness, more distorted in his person, and apparently more 
deficient in intellect, than the horses and mules that passed him by. 
Advanced to the grade of a soldier, he was clean and neat in his 
person, amenable to discipline, expert at his exercises, and showed 
the port and bearing of a white man similarly placed. As a citizen, 
he was remarkable for the respectability of his appearance, and the 
decorum of his manners in the rank assigned him ; and as a priest, 
standing in the house of God, appointed to instruct society on their 
most important interests, and in a grade in which moral and intel- 
lectual fitness is required, and a certain degree of superiority is ex- 
pected, he seemed even more devout in his impressions, and more 
correct in his manners, than his white associates. I came, therefore, 
to the irresistible conclusion in my mind, that color was an accident 
affecting the surface of a man, and having no more to do with his 
qualities than his clothes — that God had equally created an African 
in the image of his person, and equally given him an immortal soul ; 
and that a European had no pretext but his own cupidity, for impiously 
thrusting his fellow man from that rank in the creation which the 
Almighty had assigned him, and degrading him below the lot of the 
brute beasts that perish. — Notes on Brazil. 



ARCHBISHOP SHARP, 

The grandfather of Granville Sharp, in a sermon preached before tne 
British House of Commons, one hundred and fifty-six years ago, used 
the following remarkable language : 

" That Africa, which is not now more fruitful of monsters, than it 
was once for excellently wise and learned men, — that Africa, which 
formerly afforded us our Clemens, our Origen, our Teriullian, our Cy- 
prian, our Augusiin, and many other extraordinary lights in the Church 
of God, — that famous Africa, in whose soil, Christianity did thrive so 
prodigiously, and could boast of so many flourishing churches, — alas ! 
is now a wilderness. " The wild boars have broken into the vine- 
yard, and ate it up, and it brings forth nothing but briers and thorns," 
to use the words of the prophet. And who knows but God may 
suddenly make this church and nation, this our England, which, 
Jeshurun-like, is waxed fat and grown proud, and has kicked against 
God, such another example of vengeance of this kind." 



152 R. R. MADDEN MR. DUPUI8 A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. 



R. R. MADDEN. 

Solne of the finest forms I ever beheld were those of negroes ; and 
had I been desirous of representing the beauty of the human figure, I 
have seen negroes from Darfur, the symmetry of whose persons might 
have served for a standard ; neither does the observation apply to the 
intellect of the blacks. 

When the negro troops were first brought down to Alexandria, 
nothing could exceed their insubordination and wild demeanor ; but 
they learned 'the military evolutions in half the time of the Arabs, and 
I always observed they went through the manceuvres with ten times 
the adroitness of the others. It is the fashion here as well as in our 
colonies, to consider the negroes as the last link in the chain of hu- 
manity, between the monkey tribe and man, but I do not believe the 
negro is inferior to the white man in intellect ; and I do not suffer the 
eloquence of the slave driver to convince me that the negro is so stul- 
tified as to be unfit for freedom. — Travels in Turkey, Egypt, and 
Nubia, 4^c, 



MR. DUPUIS. 

British Consul at Mogadore, says of the whites in slavery under 
the Moors : 

"If they have been any considerable time in slavery, they appear 
lost to reason and to feeling — their spirits are broken, and their facul- 
ties sunken in a species of stupor, which I am unable to describe. 
They appear degraded even below the negro slave. The succession 
of hardships, without any protecting law to which they can appeal for 
alleviation or redress, seems to destroy every species of exertion or 
hope in their minds. They appear indifferent to every thing around 
them ; abject, servile, and brutish." 



A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. 

The sum of five thousand pounds sterling, stands invested for the 
mutual benefit of two very excellent institutions in London — the 
Magdalen Asylum and the Foundling Hospital. It was bequeathed 
to them by one OMICHAND, a black merchant in Calcutta, who 
left many equally liberal donations to other charitable institutions in 
all parts of the world. 

Another. — A poor negro walking towards Deptford, Eng., saw 
by the road side an old sailor of a different complexion, with but one 
arm and two wooden legs. The worthy African immediately took 
three halfpence and a farthing, his little all, from the side-pocket of 



TOUSSAINT L'oUVERTURE. 163 

his tattered trowsers, and forced them into the sailor's hand, while he 
wiped the tears from his eye with the corner of his blue patched jacket, 
and then walked away quite happy. — Sholto and Reuben Percy's 
Anecdotes. 



TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE. 

Citizen Consul, — Your letter, of the 27th Brumaire, has been 
transmitted to me by Citizen Le Clerc, your brother-in-law, whom 
you have appointed Captain General of this island, a title not recog- 
nised by the constitution of St. Domingo. The same messenger has 
restored two innocent children to the fond embraces of a doating 
father. What a noble instance of European humanity ! But, dear 
as those pledges are to me, and painful as our separation is, I will 
owe no obligations to my enemies, and I therefore return them to the 
custody of their j'a«7er*. 

You ask me, do I desire consideration, honors, and fortune ? Most 
certainly I do, but not of thy giving. My consideration is placed in 
the respect of my countrymen, my honors in their attachment, my 
fortune in their disinterested fidehty. Has this mean idea of personal 
aggrandizement been held out in the hope that I would be induced 
thereby to betray the cause I have undertaken 1 The power I pos- 
sess has been as legitimately acquired as your own, and nought but 
the decided voice of the people of St. Domingo shall compel me to 
relinquish it. 

It is not cemented by blood, or maintained by the artifices of Euro- 
pean policy. " The ferocious men whose persecutions I put a stop 
to," have confessed my clemency, and I have pardoned the wretch 
whose dagger has been aimed at my life. If I have removed from 
this island certain turbulent spirits, who strove to feed the frames of 
civil war, their guilt has been first established before a competent 
tribunal, and finally confessed by themselves. Is there one of them 
who can say that he has been condemned unheard or untried ? And 
yet these monsters are to be brought back once more, and, aided by 
the bloodhounds of Cuba, are to be uncoupled and hallooed to hunt 
us down and devour us ; and this by men who dare to call themselves 
Christians. — Letter to Bonaparte, 18U3. 

" He was born a slave in St. Domingo, 1745. In his youth he 
was noted for his benevolence and tender feeling towards brutes, and 
his stability of temper. By assiduity he learnt to read, write and 
cipher, this, and his regular and amiable deportment, gained the esteem 
|i of his master, whom he saved in the revolution of 1791. That ho 
' never broke his word was proverbial. His unlimited power he never 
abused. The French general, being unable to corrupt, abducted 
him to a dungeon in France, where he perished in 1803." — History 
of Hayti. 

Godwin, in his admirable Lectures on Colonial Slavery, says: 
' Can the West India Islands, since their first discovery by Colum- 

20 



154 PHILLIS WHEATLET. 

bus, boast a single name which deserves comparison with that of 
Toussaint L'Ouverture ?" He is there spoken of by Vincent in his 
Reflections on the State of St. Domingo : " Toussaint I/Ouverture is 
the most active and indefatigable man, of whom it is possible to form 
an idea. He is always present wherever difficulty or danger makes 
his presence necessary. His great sobriety, — the power of living 
without repose, — the facility with which he resumes the affairs of the 
cabinet, after the most tiresome excursions, — of answering daily a 
hundred letters, — and of habitually tiring five secretaries — render him 
so superior to all around him, that their respect and submission almost 
amount to fanaticism. It is certain no man in modern times has 
obtained such an influence over a mass of ignorant people, as Gene- 
ral Toussaint possesses over his brethren of St. Domingo. He is 
endowed with a prodigious memory. He is a good father and a good 
husband." 

Thou hast left behind 
Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth and skies ; 
There's not a breathing of the common wind 
That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies. 
Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 
And love, and man's unconquerable mind. 

Wordsworth- 



PHILLIS WHEATLEY. 

Hail, happy day! when, smiling like tlie mom. 
Fair Freedom rose, New England to adorn ; 
The northern clime, beneath her genial ray, 
Dartmouth ! congratulates thy blissful sway ; 
Elate with hope, her race no longer mourns, 
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns. 
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold 
The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold. 
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies, 
She shines supreme, while hated faction dies : 
Soon as appeared the Goddess long desired, 
Sick at the view she languished and expired ; 
Thus from the splendors of the morning light 
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night. 

No more, America, in mournful strain. 
Of wrongs and grievance unredressed complain j 
No longer shall thou dread the iron chain 
Which wanton Tyranny, with lawless hand. 
Had made, and with it meant t' enslave the land. 

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song, 
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung, 
Whence flow these wishes for the common good, 
By feeling hearts alone best understood, 
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate 
Was snatched from Afric's fancied happy seat: 
What pangs excruciating must molest. 
What sorrows labor in my p^ent's breast ! 



AUSTRIA — 'RUSSIA. 166 

Steeled was that soul, and by no misery moved. 
That from a father seized his babe beloved : 
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray 
Others may never feel tyrannic sway ? 

For favors past, great Sir, our thanks are due, 
And thee we ask thy favors to renew, 
Since in thy power, as in thy will before. 
To soothe the griefs which thou didst once deplore. 
May heavenly grace the sacred sanction give 
To all thy works, and thou for ever live. 
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame, 
Though praise immortal crowns the patriot's name^ 
But to conduct to heaven's refulgent iane. 
May fiery coursers sweep the etheria! plain. 
And bear thee upwards to that blest abode. 
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God. 

Inscribed to WUliam-y Earl of Dartmouth. 



AUSTRIA. 

Extract from the ordinance of his Imperial and Royal Majesty of 
Austria, dated 25th June, 1826. 

" In order to prevent Austrian subjects and vassals from partici- 
pating in any manner in the slave-trade, and in order to prevent 
slaves from bad treatment, his Imperial and Royal Majesty, in con- 
formity with the existing laws of Austria (viz. section 16 of the Civil 
Code, which determines that every human being, in virtue of those 
rights which are recognised by reason, is to be considered a civil 
person, and that, therefore, slavery, and every exercise of power rela- 
tive to the state of slavery, are not tolerated in the imperial and royal 
dominions,) and further, in conformity with section 78 of the first part 
of the Penal Code, which declares every hindrance of the exercise 
of personal liberty a crime of public violence — has been graciously 
pleased, by his sovereign resolution of 25th June, 1826, to determine 
and order as follows : — Art. 1. Any slave, from the moment he treads 
on the soil of the Imperial and. Royal Dominions of Austria, or even 
merely steps on board of an Austrian vessel, shall be free." 

Austrian Consulate General, New York, Oct. 18, 1830. 

L. Lederer 



RUSSIA. 



Consular notice. — Certain individuals who, in defiance of the 
laws of their own country, still continue to engage in the African 
slave-trade, having given cause for suspicion that they intend to make 
use of the Russian flag as a protection against the right of search and 
seizure, mutually assumed and conceded by the powers participating 
in the treaty for the suppression of this nefarious traffic, the under- 
signed, the Russian Consul General, at New York, being specially 



ll56 HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 

instructed by his government, gives hereby pubhc notice to all per- 
sons whom it may concern, that the Russian flag can in no case be 
resorted to without the previous permission of" the Imperial Govern- 
ment, and without legal authorization in due form, and in strict 
accordance with the laws of the empire ; that any proceeding to the 
contrary shall be considered as a fraud, exposing the persons guilty 
of it to all its consequences ; and that no slave-trader, in any circum- 
stances whatever, when seized under the Russian flag, or otherwise, 
can invoke the aid of the Imperial Government to screen him from 
just and well-merited punishment. 

Russe du Consulate General, New York, April 2, 1836. 

Alexis Eustaphieve. 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE, 

Concerning the Effects of Immediate Emancipation. 

When the question of immediate abolition was first started in England, the friends 
of slavery vociferated nothing more loudly, than the danger of universal insurrection 
and bloodshed ; and nothing took stronger hold of the sympathies and conscientious 
fears of the people, than these repeated assertions. I'his is precisely the state of 
things in our own country, at the present time. We all know that it is not accord- 
ing to human nature for men to turn upon their benefactors, and do violence, at the 
very moment they receive what they have long desired ; but we are so repeatedly 
told the slaves unll murder their masters, if they give them freedom, that we can 
hardly help believing that, in this peculiar case, the laws of human nature must be 
reversed. Let us try to divest ourselves of the fierce excitement now abroad in the 
community, and calmly inquire what is the testimony of history on this important 
subject. 

In June, 1793, a civil war occurred between the aristocrats arrd republicans of 
St Domingo; and the planters called in the aid of Great Britain. The opposing 
party proclaimed freedom to all slaves, and armed them against the British. It is 
generally supposed that the abolition of slavery in St. Domingo was in consequence of 
insurrections among the slaves ; but this, is not true. Jl ivas enlirely a measure of 
political expediency. And what were the consequences of this sudden and universal 
emancipation ? Whoever will take the pains to search tl^e histories of that island, 
will find the whole colored population remained faithful to the republican party 
which had given them freedom. The British were defeated, and obliged to evacu- 
ate the island. The sea being at t'lat timi^full of British cruisers, the French 
had no time to attend to St. Domingo, and the colonists were left to govern 
themselves. And what was the conduct of the emancipated slaves, under these 
circumstances ? About 500,000 slaves had instantaneously ceased to be property, 
and were invested with the rights of men ; yet there was a decrease of crime, and 
every thing went on quietly and prosperously. Col. Malenfant, who resided on the 
island, says, in his historical memoir: "After this public act of emancipation, the 
negroes remained quiet both in the south and west, and they continued to work 
upon all the plantations. Even upon those estates which had been abandoned by 
owners and managers, the negroes continued their labor where there were any 
agents to guide ; and where no white men were left to direct them, they betook 
themselves to planting provisions. The colony was flourishing. The whites lived 
happy and in peace upon their estates, and the negroes continued to work for them." 

General Lacroix, in his memoirs, speaking of the saiue period, says: "The 
colony marched as by enchantment towards its ancient splendor; cultivation pros- 
pered ; every day produced perceptible proofs of its progress." 

This prosperous state of things lasted about eight years ; and would probably 
have continued to this day, had not Bonaparte, at the instigation of the old aristo- 
cratic French planters, sent an army to deprive the blacks of the freedom which 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 157 

they had used so well. It was the attempts to restore slavery, that produced all 
the bloody horrors of St. Domingo. Emancipation produced the most blessed effects. 

In June, 1794, Victor Hugo, a French republican general, retook the island of 
Guadaloupe from the British, and immediately proclaimed freedom to all the slaves. 
They were 85,000 in number, and the whites only 13,000. JVo disasters whatever 
occwred in consequence of this step. Seven years after, the supreme council of 
Guadaloupe, in an official document, alluding to the tranquillity that reigned 
throughout the island, observed: "We shall have the satisfaction of giving an 
example which will prove that all classes of people may live in perfect harmony with 
each other, under an administration which secures justice to all classes." In 1802, 
Bonaparte again reduced this island to slavery, at the cost of about 20,000 negro 
lives. 

On the 10th of October, 1811, the congress of Cliili decreed that every child bom 
after that day shoud be free. 

In 1821, the congress of Colombia emancipated all slaves who had borne arms in 
favor of the republic ; and provided for the emancipation in eighteen years of the 
whole slave population, amounting to 900,000. 

In September, 1829, the government of Mexico granted immediate and unquali- 
fied freedom to every slave. In all these cases, not one instance of insurrection or 
bloodshed has ever been heard of, as the result of emancipation. 

In July, 1823, 30,000 Hottentots in Cape Colony, were emancipated from their 
long and cruel bondage, and admitted by law to all the rights and privileges of the 
white colonists. Outrages were predicted, as the inevitable consequence of freeing 
human creatures so completely brutalized as the poor Hottentots ; but all went on 
peaceably; and as a gentleman facetiously remarked, "Hottentots as they were, 
they worked better for Mr. Cash, than they had ever done for Mr. Lash." 

In the South African Commercial Advertiser of February, 1831, it is stated: 
" Three thousand prize negroes have received their freedom ; four hundred in one 
day; but not the least difficulty or disaster occurred. Servants found masters — 
masters hired servants — all gained homes, and at night scarcely an idler ivas to be seen. 
— To slate that sudden emancipation would create disorder and distress to those 
you mean to Serve, is not reason, but the plea of all men adverse to abolition." 

On the 1st of August, 1834, the government of Great Britain emancipated the 
slaves in all her colonics, of which she had twenty; seventeen in the West Indies, 
and three in the East Indies. The measure was not carried in - manner completely 
satisfactory to the English abolitionists. Historical evidence, and their own knowl- 
edge of human nature, led them to the conclusion that immediate and unqualified 
emancipation was the safest for the master, as well as the most just towards the 
slave. But the W'est India planters talked so loudly of the dangers of such a step, 
and of the necessity of time to fit the slaves for freedom, that the government re- 
solved to conciliate them by a sort of c-ompromise. The slaves were to continue to 
work six years longer without wages, under the name of apprentices ; but during 
this period, they could be punished only by the express orders of the magistrates. 

The le2;islaturcs of the several colonies had a right to dispense with the system 
of apprenticeship ; but Antigua and Bermuda were the only ones that adopted im- 
mediate and unconditional emancipation. 

Public proclamation of freedom was made on the first of August, and was every 
where recL-ived in joy and peace. Mr. Cobbett, a missionary stationed at Montego 
Bay, Jamaica, writes thus: "The first of August was a memorable day! Our 
preaching place was crowded at an early hour. At the close of the service, I read 
the address of his excellency the governor to the negro population, made several 
remarks in reference to the change of their condition, and exhorted them to be 
obedient to their masters and to the powers that be. There was in every counte- 
nance an expression of satisfaction, and of gratitude to God and their benefactors. 
The conduct of the negroes during this everitful period has been such as will raise 
them, I should think, in the eyes of all their friends." 

Mr. Wedlock, of the same place, writes tlius on the 13th of August: "The first 
day of Auirust, a day to which the attention of thr wise, the good, and the philan- 
thropic, of other countries besides our own, was directed, has arrived and passed 
by in the most peaceful and harmonious manner. Such congregations, such atten- 
tion, such joys and grateful feelings as are depicted in every countenance. I never 
beheld ! — Up to this time, peace and haxmony prevail." 



15S HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 

The Marquis of Sligo, governor of Jamaica, in his speech to the assembly, after 
five months' trial of emancipation, declares: "Not the slightest idea of any inter- 
ruption of tranquillity exists in any quarter; and those preparations which 1 have 
felt it my duty to make, might, without the slightest danger, have been dispensed 
with." In a recent address to the assembly, he states that the crops this year, (1835) 
will fall short only about one sixteenth ; and that this shght difference may be 
accounted for by the unfavorableness of the season. 

The enemies of abolition predicted that the crops in Jamaica, would perish for 
want of being gathered ; because the negroes could not possibly be induced to work 
an hour longer than the law or the whip compelled them. But as soon as the 
planters offered them wages for working extra hours, more work was offered than 
the planters were willing to pay for. Even the low price of a penny an hour, 
operated like magic upon them, and inspired them to diligence ! 

The numerical superiority of the negroes in the West Indies is great. In Jamaica 
there were 331,000 slaves, and only 37,000 whites. By the clumsy apprenticeship 
system, the old stimulus of the whip was taken away, while the new and better 
stimulus of wages was not applied. The negroes were aware that if they worked 
well they should not be paid for it, and tliat if they worked ill they could not be 
flogged, as they had formerly been. Yet even under these disadvantageous cir- 
cumstances, no difficulties occurred except in three of the islands ; and even there 
the difficulties were slight and temporary. Let us inquire candidly how these trou- 
bles originated. The act of parliament provided, that the apprentice should work 
for his master forty and a half hours per week, and have the remainder of the time 
for his own benefit ; but it did not provide that while they were apprentices (and 
of course worked without wages) they should enjoy all the privileges to which they 
had been accustomed while slaves. The planters availed themselves of this cir- 
cumstance to put obstructions in the way of abolition ; with the hope likewise of 
coercing the apprentices to form individual contracts to work fifty hours in the 
week, instead of forty and a half. While the people had been slaves, they had 
aiways been allowed cooks to prepare their meals ; nurses to take care of the little 
children ; and a person to bring icater to the gang, during the hot hours ; but when 
they became apprentices, these privileges were taken away. Each slave was 
obliged to quit his or her work to go to his own cabin (sometimes a great distance) 
to cook their meals, instead of having them served in the field ; water was not 
allowed them ; the aged and infirm, instead of being employed as formerly, to 
superintend the children in the shade, were driven to labor in the hot sun, and 
motiiers were obliged to toil at the hoe with their infants strapped at their backs. 
In addition to this, the planters obtained from the governor a new proclamation, 
requiring the apprentices to labor extra hours for their masters, when they should 
deem it necessary mi the cultivation, gathering, or manufacture of the crop, provided 
they repaid them an equal time " at a convenient season of the year." This was 
like taking from a New-England farmer the month of July to be repaid in January. 
Under these petty vexations, and unjust exactions, some of the apprentices stopt 
work in three of the colonies, out of seventeen. But even in these three, their 
resistance was merely passive. The worst enemies of abolition have not tet 
been able to show tha-t a single drop of blood has been shed, or a single 
plantation fired, in consequence of emancipation, in all the british 
West Indies ! 

In Jamaica they refused to work upon the terms which their masters endeavored 
to impose. A very small military force was sent into one parish, and but on one 
occasion. Not a drop of blood was shed on either side. 

In Demerara they refused to work on the prescribed terms, and marched about 
with a flagstaff, as "the ten hour men" have done in many of our cities. But the 
worst thing they did was to strike a constable with their fists. 

In St. Christopher's the resistance was likewise entirely passive. In two weeks 
the whole trouble was at an end ; and it was ascertained that, out of twenty thou- 
sand apprentices, only thirty were absent from work ; and some of these were 
supposed to be dead in the woods. 

One apprentice, execiited in Demerara for insubordination, is the only life that 
has yet been lost in this great experiment ! and a few yis«t/-ct(^s with a constable, 
on one single occasion, has been the only violence ofiered to persons or property, by 
eight hundred thousand emancipated slaves. 



ST. DOMINGO. 169 

Antigua and Bermuda did not try the apprenticeship system ; but at once gave 
the slaves the stimulus of wages. In those islands not the slightest difficulties have 
occurred. The journals of Antigua say: "The great doubt is solved; and the 
highest hopes of the negroes' friends are fulfilled. Thirty thousand men have 
passed from slavery into freedom, not only without the shghtest irregularity, but 
with the solemn and decorous tranquillity of a Sabbath !" 

In Antigua there are 2,000 whites, 30,000 slaves, and 4,500 free blacks. 

Antigua and St. Christopher's are within gunshot of each other ; both are sugar 
growing colonies ; and the proportion of blacks is less in St. Christopher's than it is 
in Antigua : yet the former island has had some difficulty with the gradual system, 
while the quiet of the latter has not been disturbed for one hour by immediate enian- 
cipation. Do not these facts speak volumes ? 

There are, in the West Indies, many men, (planters, overseers, drivers, and'book- 
keepers,) who, from pride, licentiousness, and other motives, do not like a change 
which takes away from them uncontrolled power over men and women. These 
individuals try to create difficulties, and exaggerate the report of them. It is much 
to be regretted that the American press has hitherto preferred their distorted stories, 
unsubstantiated by a particle of proof, to the well- authenticated evidence of magis- 
trates and missionaries resident on the islands. 

Why are the friends of slavery so desirous to make it appear that the British 
experiment does 7iot work well ! It is because they are conscious that if it does 
work well, America has no excuse left to screen her from the strong disapprobation 
of the civilized world. — J^ew-York Evening Post. 



ST. DOMINGO. 

Slaveholders and Colonizationists have long delighted to appeal to 
St. Domingo, as a triumphant proof that free negroes wont work, and 
of course, as a triumphant argument against emancipation. Now, 
it so happens, that notwithstanding our negro hatred, we have a pretty 
extensive commerce with " the idle and worthless population" of St. 
Domingo, to use the language of Col. Stone, and it So happens that 
this idle and worthless population are among our best customers. 

In most other countries we have ministers, or at l^ast consuls to 
watch over the interests of our merchants ; but to send a minister or 
consid to St. Domingo would be so revolting to the feelings of our 
southern brethren, that they would probably threaten to dissolve the 
Union, and so our merchants are left to take care of their own inter- 
ests there. It may be useful to compare the amount of those interests 
with the amount of their interests in certain other countries, where 
we have consuls, and in some instances ministers. 

The following comparative view is taken from a statement of the 
value of the imports and exports of the United States, for the year 
ending 30th September, 1835, recently laid before Congress by the 
Secretary of the Treasury : 





Exports to. 


Imports from. 


Hayti, 


$1,815,812 


$2,347,556 


Prussia, 


55,745 


38,543 


Russia, 


585,447 


2,395,245 


Sweden and Norway, 


516,238 


1,235,178 


Denmark, 


323,300 


121,000 


Dutch East Indies, 


1,444,290 


800,388 


Belgium, 


748,222 


341^67 



160 JEAN FIERRE BOTER SIAION BOLIVAR. 





Exports to. 


Imports from 


Ireland, 


403,604 


542,896 


British East Indies, 


754,058 


1,697,893 


Spain, 


655,961 


1,295,678 


Portugal, 


270,305 


547,974 


Italy, 


285,941 . 


1,457,977 


Swedish West Indies, 


86,355 


31,330 


Danish West Indies, 


1,457,196 


1,282,902 


Dutch West Indies, 


481,340 


403,542 


British West Indies, 


1,152,347 


1,838,227 



It thus appears that of all the above countries, the one inhabited 
by free negroes buys the most from us, and with the exception of 
Russia, sells the most to us. Surely, this is a strange result for a 
people who wont work, and for a country in which the law forbids the 
use of the lash. Our columns are open to any slaveholder or Colo- 
nizationist who will be so good as to explain the matter. — New- York 
Emancipator. 



JEAN PIERRE BOYER. 

The President of Hayti has received, with your letter of the 10th 
of October last, the different publications that you have sent him. 

His Excellency congratulates you on the perseverance with which 
you have pursued the work of abolition of slavery. The warmest 
desires of philanthropists accompany you in this difficult enterprise, 
ftnd the President of Hayti doubts not that this holy cause will con- 
clude by obtaining the triumph it merits. 

I seize, sir, this occasion of assuring you of the particular desire 
I entertain for the success of your glorious work, and renew the 
expression of my high esteem. B. Inginac. 

Letter to B. Lundy, Nov. 17, 1836. 



SIMON BOLIVAR. 

I beg as fervently of my country as I would for the lives of my 
children, that you will never consent that chme, or color, or creed, 
should make any distinction in your republic. — Address to the Sena- 
tors of Colombia. 

Legislators ! Slavery is the infringement of all laws. A law 
having a tendency to preserve slavery, would be the grossest sacri- 
lege. Man to be possessed by his fellow man ! — man to be made 
property of! The image of the Deity to be put under the yoke ! 
Let these usurpers show us their title-deeds ! — Address to the Legis- 
lature of Bolivia and Peru. 

" This distinguished man, who was second to none for patriotism 
and political philanthropy that the last dozen centuries have produced, 
is no more. He has left an example worthy the imitation of all 
slaveholders of every country and clime. 



FRANCE MOrfTESftUIEU. 161 

" In addition to his great and untiring efforts to break the chains of 
clerical and political bondage that oppressed his countrymen, he acted 
the part of perfect consistency in using his influence for the enfran- 
chisement of the African slaves, who were there reduced to abject 
servility. We have been informed that, in the early stage of the 
Colombian revolution, he emancipated from 700 to 1,000 slaves ; 
and that he strenuously and successfully ur^ed the total abolition of 
slavery by the government. Since his death it is stated that he has 
freed 150 more by will, who were still held by him, and who probably 
preferred remaining with him while he lived. 

" Benjamin Lundy." 



FRANCE. 

marselloise hymn. 

With luxury and pride surrounded, 

The vile insatiate despots dare 
(Their thirst of power and gold unbounded) 

To mete and vend the light and air ; 
Like beasts of burden would they load us, 

Like demons bid their slaves adore ; 

But man is man, and who is more ? 
Then, shall they longer lash and goad us ? 

O Liberty ! can man resign thee, 

Once having felt thy generous flame ? 
Can dungeons, bolts, or bars confine thee, 

Or whips thy noble spirit tame ? 
Too long the world has wept, bewailing 

That falsehood's dagger tyrants wield ; 

But freedom is our sword and shield, 
And all their arts are unavailing ! 



MONTESQUIEU. 

Slavery is not useful either to the master or to the slave ; to the 
slave, because he can do nothing by virtue ; to the master, because 
he contracts with his slaves all sorts of evil habits, inures himself 
insensibly to neglect every moral virtue, and becomes proud, pas- 
sionate, hard-hearted, violent, voluptuous, and cruel. The slave sees 
a society happy, whereof he is not even a part ; he finds that security 
is established for others, but not for him ; he perceives that his mas- 
ter has a soul capable of self-advancement, while his own is violently 
and for ever repressed. Nothing puts one nearer the condition of the 
beasts than always to see freemen and not to be free. Such a per- 
son is the natural enemy of the society in which he lives. 

It is impossible to allow the negroes are men, because if we allow 
them to be men, it will begin to be believed that we are not Christiaiis. 

21 



16?. JEAK JACQUES ROUSSEA0. 



JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU. 

This common liberty is a consequence resulting from the nature 
of man. His first law is that of self-preservation ; his first cares 
those which he owes to himself; and as soon as he has attained the 
age of reason, he being the only judge of the means proper to pre- 
serve himself, becomes at once his own master. 

If there are some who are slaves by nature, the reason is that men 
were at first made slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves, 
and slavery, by degrading and corrupting its victims, perpetuated 
their bondage. 

Since no man has any natural authority over his equals, and since 
force produces no right to any, all legal authority among men must 
be established on the basis of convention. 

To say that a man gives himself gratuitously is absurd and incom- 
prehensible ; such an act would in itself be illegal and void, because the 
person who performed it could not be in his proper senses. To say the 
same of a whole nation is to suppose the multitude are all mad ; but 
still folly would not confer the right so vainly contended for. 

A man who becomes the slave of another cannot give, he must sell 
himself, at least for a subsistence. But how can a people sell them- 
selves ? since, so far from a king furnishing his subjects with subsist- 
ence, he draws his own from them ; and, according to Rabelais, a 
king does not subsist upon a little. Do subjects, therefore, give 
their persons on condition that the prince will condescend to accept 
their property also ? 

If each individual could alienate himself, he could not alienate his 
descendants ; for being born men and free, their liberty is their own, 
and no person can dispose of it but themselves. 

To renounce our liberty is to renounce our quality of man, and 
with it all the rights and duties of humanity ; and no adequate com- 
pensation can possibly be made for such a sacrifice ; as it is in 
itself incompatible with the nature of man, whose actions, when once 
he is deprived of his free will, must be destitute of all morality. In 
a word, a convention which stipulates for absolute authority on one 
side, and unlimited obedience on the other, must always be consi- 
dered as vain and contradictory. What right can my slave have that 
is not mine, since every thing that he has belongs to me ; and to speak 
of the right of me against myself is absolute nonsense. 

Thus, in whatever light we view things, the right of slavery is 
found to be null ; not only because it is illegal, but because it can 
have no existence ; for the terms slavery and right contradict and 
exclude each other ; and be it from man to man, or from a man to a 
nation, it would be equally nonsensical to say — / make a covenant 
with you entirely at your expense, and for my benefit ; I will observe 
it as far as my inclination leads me, and ymi shall observe it as far 
as I please, — [On the Social Contract.^ 



BUFFON H. GREGOIRE. 163 

BUFFON. 

Upon the whole, it is apparent that the unfortunate negroes are 
endowed with excellent hearts, and possess the seeds of every human 
virtue. I cannot write their history, without lamenting their misera- 
ble condition. Is it not more than enough to reduce men to slavery, 
and to oblige them to labor perpetually, without the capacity of 
acquiring property ? To these, is it necessary to add cruelty, and 
blows, and to abuse them worse than brutes ? Humanity revolts 
against those odious oppressions which result from avarice, and 
which would have been daily renewed, had not the laws given a 
friendly check to the brutality of masters, and fixed limits to the suf- 
ferings of their slaves. They are forced to labor ; and yet the coarsest 
food is dealt out to them with a sparing hand. " They support," 
say their obdurate taskmasters, " hunger without inconvenience ; 
a single European meal is sufficient provision to a negro for three 
days ; however little they eat or sleep they are always equally strong 
and equally fit for labor." How can men, in whose breasts a single 
spark of humanity remains unextinguished, adopt such detestable 
maxims] How dare they by such barbarous and diabohcal argu- 
ments, attempt to paliate those oppressions which originate solely 
from their thirst of gold 1 But let us abandon those hardened mon- 
sters to perpetual infamy, and return to our subject. — Natural His- 
tory. 



H. GREGOIRE. 

Philanthropists! no individual can, with impunity, be just and 
benevolent. At the birth of time, war commenced between virtue 
and vice, and will not cease but with them. Devoured with the 
desire to do injury, the wicked are always armed against him who 
dares to reveal their crimes, and prevent them from tormenting the 
human race. Against their guilty attempts let us oppose a wall of 
brass, but let us avenge ourselves by benefits. Let us be active. 
Life which is so long for the commission of evil actions, is short for 
the performance of virtue. The earth steals from under our steps, 
and we go to quit this terrestrial scene. The corruption of our times 
carries towards posterity all the elements of slavery and crime. 
ISevertheless, when we repose in the tomb, some honest men, escap- 
ing the contagion, will become the representatives of Providence. 
Let us leave to them the honorable task of defending liberty and 
misfortune ; from the bosom of eternity we applaud their efforts, and 
they shall doubtless be blest by the common Father of all, who in 
men, whatever be their color, acknowledges his work, and loves them 
as his children. 

There is nothing useful but what is just ; there is no law of nature 
which makes one individual dependent on another ; and all these 
laws, which reason disavows, have no force. Every person brings 



164 H. GREGOIRE. 

■isrith him into the world his title to freedom. Social conventions 
have circumscribed its use, but its limits ought to be the same for all 
ihe members of a community, whatever be their origin, color, or 
religion. If, says Price, you have a right to make another man a 
slave, he has a right to make you a slave ; and if we have no right, 
says Ramsay, to sell him, no one has a right to purchase him. 

May European nations, at least, expiate their crimes towards 
Africans. May Africans, raising their humiliated fronts, give spring 
to all their faculties, and rival the whites in talents and virtues only ; 
avenging themselves by benefits and effusions of fraternal kindness, 
at last enjoy liberty and happiness. 

If ever negroes, bursting their chains, should come (which Heaven 
forbid) Oil the European coast, to drag whites of both sexes from 
their families ; to chain them and conduct them to Africa, and mark 
them with a hot iron ; if whites stolen, sold, purchased by crimes, 
and placed under the guidance of merciless inspectors, were imme- 
diately compelled, by the stroke of the whip, to work in a climate 
injurious to their health, where, at the close of each day, they could 
have no other consolation than that of advancing another step to the 
tomb — no other perspective than to suffer and to die in all the anguish 
of despair — if devoted to misery and ignominy, they were excluded 
from all the privileges of society, and declared legally incapable of 
judicial action, their testimony would not have been admitted even 
against the black class; if driven from the sidewalks, they were 
compelled to mingle with the animals in the middle of the street — if 
a subscription were made to have them lashed in a mass, and their 
backs, to prevent gangrene, covered with pepper and with salt — if 
the forfeit for killing them were but a trifling sum — if a reward were 
offered for apprehending those who escape from slavery — if those 
who escape were hunted by a pack of hounds, trained to carnage — 
if, blaspheming the Divinity, the blacks pretended, that by their origin 
they had permission of Heaven to preach passive obedience and 
resignation to the whites — if greedy hireling writers published, that 
for this reason, just reprisals may be exercised against the rebellious 
whites, and that white slaves are happy, more happy than the peasants 
in the bosom of Africa ; — in a word, if all the arts of cunning and 
calumny, all the strength and fury of avarice, all the inventions of 
ferocity were directed against you, by a coalition of dogs, merchants, 
priests, kings, soldiers, and colonists, what cry of horror would re- 
sound through these countries ? To express it, new epithets would 
be sought ; a crowd of writers, and particularly of poets, would exhaust 
their eloquent lamentations, provided that having nothing to fear, 
there was something to gain. Europeans, reverse this hypothesis, 
and see what you are ! 

Yes, I repeat it, there is not a vice, not a species of wickedness, 
of which Europe is not guilty towards negroes, of which she has not 
shown them the example. Avenging God ! suspend thy thunder, 
exhaust thy compassion, in giving her time and courage to repair, if 
possible, these horrors and atrocities.- -Faculties of Negroes 



THE ABB£ KAVNAL JAQUES PIBRRE BRISSOT. 166 



THE ABBE RAYNAL. 

Will it be said that he, who wants to make me a slave, does me no 
injury, but that he only makes use of his rights ? Where are those 
rights ? Who hath stamped upon them so sacred a character as to 
silence mine i 

He, who supports the system of slavery, is the enemy of the whole 
human race. He divides it into two societies of legal assassins ; the 
oppressors, and the oppressed. It is the same thing as proclaiming 
to the world, if you would preserve your life, instantly take away 
mine, for I want to have yours. 

But the negroes, they say, are a race born for slavery ; their dis- 
positions are narrow, treacherous, and wicked ; they themselves 
allow the superiority of our understandings, and almost acknowledge 
the justice of our authority. Yes ; the minds of the negroes are 
contracted, because slavery destroys all the springs of the soul. 
They are wicked, but not equally so with you. They are treacher- 
ous, because they are under no obligation to speak truth to their 
tyrants. They acknowledge the superiority of our understandings, 
because we have abused their ignorance. They allow the justice of 
our authority, because we have abused their weakness. 

I shall not be afraid to cite to the tribunal of reason and justice 
those governments, which tolerate this cruelty, or which even are not 
ashamed to make it the basis of their power. 



JAQUES PIERRE BRISSOT. 

Why is it declared that a slave cannot be a witness against a free 
man. You either suppose him less true than the free man, or you 
suppose him differently organised. The last supposition is absurd ; 
the other, if true, is against yourselves ; tor, why are they less con- 
scientious, more corrupted and more wicked 1 — It is because they 
are slaves. The crime falls on the head of the master ; and the 
slave is thus degraded and punished for the vice of the master. 

Why do you ordain that the master should be reimbursed from the 
public treasury, the price of the slave who may suffer death for 
crimes 1 If, as is easy to prove, the crimes of slaves are almost 
universally the fruit of their slavery, and are in proportion to the 
severity of their treatment, is it not absurd to recompense the master 
for his tyranny ? When we recollect that these masters have hitherto 
been accustomed to consider their slaves as a species of cattle, and 
that the laws make the master responsible for the damages done by 
his cattle, does it not appear contradictory to reverse the law relative 
to these black cattle, when they do a mischief, for which society 
thinks it necessary to extirpate them 1 In this case, the real author 
of the rrime. int^fead of paying damages, receives a reward. 



166 JAftUES PIERRE BRISSOT. 

The little state of Delaware has followed the example of Pennsyl- 
vania. It is mostly peopled by Quakers ; instances of giving freedom 
are therefore numerous. In this state, famous for the wisdom of its 
laws, for its good faith and federal patriotism, resides that angel of 
peace, Warner Mifflin. Like Benezet, he occupies his time in 
extending the opinions of his society relative to the freedom of the 
blacks, and the care of providing for their existence and their instruc- 
tion. It is in part to his zeal that is owing the formation of a society 
in that state, after the model of the one at Philadelphia, for the aboli- 
tion of slavery. 

With the state of Delaware finishes the system of protection to the 
blacks. Yet there are some negroes freed in Maryland, because 
there are some Quakers there ; and you perceive it very readily, on 
comparing the fields of tobacco or of Indian corn, belonging to these 
people, with those of others ; you see how much superior the hand of 
a freeman is to that of a slave, in the operations of industry. 

When you run over Maryland and Virginia, you conceive yourself 
in a different world ; and you are convinced of it, when you converse 
with the inhabitants. 

They speak not here of projects for freeing the negroes ; they praise 
not the societies of London and America ; they read not the works 
of Clarkson — No ; the indolent masters behold with uneasiness the 
efforts that are making to render freedom universal. 

The strongest objection lies in the character, the manners, and 
habits of the Virginians. They seem to enjoy the sweat of slaves. 
They are fond of hunting ; they love the display of luxury, and dis- 
dain the idea of labor. This order of things will change when slavery 
shall be no more. It is not, that the v/ork of a slave is more 
profitable than that of a freeman ; but it is in multiplying the slaves, 
condemning them to a miseiable nourishment, in depriving them of 
clothes, and in running over a large quantity of land with a negligent 
culture, that they supply the deficiency of honest industry. 

In the South, the blacks are in a state of abjection difficult to de- 
scribe ; many of them are naked, ill fed, lodged in miserable huts, on 
straw. They receive no education, no instruction in any kind of 
religion ; they are not married, but coupled ; thus they are brutalized. 
Every thing in Maryland and Virginia wears the print of slavery ; a 
starved soil, bad cultivation, houses falling to ruin, cattle small and 
few, and black walking skeletons ; in a word, you see real misery, 
and apparent luxury, insulting each other. 

" God has created men of all nations, of all languages, of all colors, 
equally free ; Slavery, in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a viola- 
tion of the Divine laws ; and a degradation of human nature." 

\_Travels in the United States, 1788.] 



JONATHAN SWIFT— LAURENCi; STERNK. !•''' 



JONATHAN SWIFT. 

ABI VIATOR, 

ET IMITARE, SI POTERIS, 

8TRENUUM PRO VIRILI LIBERTATIS VINDICEM. 

(go TRAVELLER, 

AND IMITATE, IF YOU CAN, 

A STRENUOUS ADVOCATE OF HUMAN LIBERTY.) 

From the Epitaph of Dean Swift, 
Written by himself, and engraved on his monument in St. 
Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. 



LAURENCE STERNE. 

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still. Slavery, still thou art a bitter 
draught ! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink 
of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. — 'Tis thou, thrice 
sweet and gracious goddess, Liberty ! whom all in pubhc or in 
private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Na- 
ture herself shall change — no tint of words can spot thy snowy 
mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron — with thee to 
smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his 
monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. — Gracious heaven ! grant 
me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair 
goddess as my companion. 

" A negro has a soul, an' please your honor," said the Corporal, 
[doubtingly. ) 

" I am not much versed. Corporal," quoth my Uncle Toby, " In 
things of that kind ; but I suppose God would not leave him without 
one any more than thee or me." 

" It would be putting one sadly over the head of the other," quoth 
the Corporal. 

" It would so," said my Uncle Toby. 

" Why then, an' please your honor, is a black man to be used worse 
than a white one ?" 

" I can give no reason," said my Uncle Toby. 

" Only," cried the Corporal, shaking his head, " because he has no 
one to stand up for him." 

" It is that very thing, Trim," quoth my Uncle Toby, " which re- 
commends him to protection." — Tristam Shandy. 



IM CTTRRAN GKATTaN — MISS BDGEWORTB. 



JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 

" Universal emancipation !" I speak in the spirit of the British 
Law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, 
the British soil — which proclaims, even to the stranger and the so- 
journer, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground 
on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of Uni- 
versal Emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may 
have been pronounced ; no matter what complexion incompatible with 
freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him ; no 
matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven 
down ; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted 
upon the altar of slavery ; the first moment he touches the sacred soil 
of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust ; his soul 
walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the mea- 
sure of his chains, that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, 
regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible Genius of univer- 
sal EMANCIPATION ! 



HENRY GRATTAN. 

Liberty — and is this subject a matter of indifference ? — Liberty, 
which, like the Deity, is an essential spirit best known by its conse- 
quences — liberty, which now animates you in your battles by sea and 
land, and lifts you up proudly superior to your enemies — liberty, that 
glorious spark and emanation of the Divinity, which fired your ances- 
tors, and taught them to teel like an Hampden, that it was not life, 
but the condition of living ! An Irishman sympathizes in these noble 
sentiments — wherever he goes — to whatever quarter of the earth he 
journeys — whatever wind blows his poor garments, let him but have 
the pride, the glory, the ostentation of liberty ! 



MARIA EDGEWORTH. 

Are we disposed to pity the slave-merchant, who, urged by the 
maniacal desire for gold, hears, unmoved, the groans of his fellow- 
creatures, the execrations of mankind, and that " small still voice," 
which haunts those who are stained with blood ? — Practical Education. 

Granting it to be physically impossible that the world should exist 
without rum and sugar and indigo, why could they not be produced 
by freemen as well as by slaves 1 If we hired negroes for laborers, 
instead of purchasing them for slaves, do you think they would not 
work as well as now ? Does any negro, under the fear of the over- 



THOMAS MOORE DANIEL o'cONNELL. 169 

« 

seer, work harder than a Birmingham journeyman, or a Newcastle 
colHer ; who toil for themselves and their families l 

The law, in our case, seems to make the right ; and the very re- 
verse ought to be done ; the right should make the law. 



THOMAS MOORE. 

Wearily every bosom pineth, 

Wearily oh ! wearily oh ! 
Where the chain of slavery twineth, 
Wearily oh ! wearily oh ! 
There the warrior's dart 

Hath no fleetness, 
There the maiden's heart 
Hath no sweetness. 
Every flower of life declineth, 

Wearily oh ! wearily oh ! 
Wearily — wearily — wearily — 
Wearily — wearily — wearily oh ! 
Wearily oh ! wearily oh ! 

Who can, with patience, for a moment see 
The medley mass of pride and misery. 
Of whips and charters, manacles and rights, 
Of slaving blacks and democratic whites, 
And all the piebald policy that reigns 
In free confusion o'er Columbia's plains ? 
To think that man, — thou just and gentle God, 
Should stand before thee with a tyrant's rod. 
O'er creatures like himself, with souls from thee, 
Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty ! ! 

Away ! away ! I'd rather hold my neck 
By doubtful tenure from a Sultan's beck. 
In climes where liberty has scarce been nam'd, 
Nor any right, but that of ruling claim'd. 
Than thus to live, where boasted Freedom wave* 
Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves ; — 
Where motley laws, (admitting no degree 
Betwixt the hvely slav'd and madly free,) 
AUke the bondage and the license suit, — 
The brute made ruler, and the man made brute ! 



DANIEL O'CONNELL. 

To proceed, however, to the case of America. He had often 
longed to go there in reality ; but so long as that country was tar- 
nished by the continuance of slavery, he would never pollute his foot 
by treading on its shores. (Loud applause.) In the course of his 
parliamentary duty, he had lately felt it necessary to arraign the con- 
duct of the despot of the north, for his cruelty to the men, women, 
end children of Poland ; but, altliough he hated him with as much 

22 



170 DANIEL O'CONNELL. 

hatred as one Christian man could hate another, viz* he detested his 
actions, yet he confessed that there was a chmax to his hatred. He 
would adopt the language of the poet, but reverse the imagery, and 
say, 

" In the deepest hell there is a depth still more profound," 

and that was to be found in the conduct of the American slave owners. 
He rejoiced that upon the wings of the press, the voice of so humble 
an individual as himself would pass against the western breeze, and 
would reach the rivers, the lakes, the mountains, and the glens of 
America, and that the friends of liberty there would sympathize with 
him, and rejoice that in England he tore down the image of slavery 
from the recreant hand of America, and condemned her as the vilest 
hypocrite, the greatest of liars. (Loud applause.) An American 
gentleman called upon him that morning, and he (Mr. O'C.) asked 
him, with some anxiety, what part of America he came from ? to 
which the gentleman replied, from Boston. He then shook hands 
with him, and congratulated him that that state had never been tar- 
nished with slavery ; but added, that he should be sorry to be con- 
taminated by the touch of a man from states where slavery was 
continued. The gentleman then said that he was no advocate of 
slavery, but if he (Mr. O'C.) would permit him, he would discuss 
the question with him. He (Mr. O'C.) rephed, that if a man were 
to propose to him a discussion on picking pockets, he should turn 
him out of his study, lest he should cany his theory into practice — 
(laughter) — but he would as soon discuss that question as the pro- 
priety of negro slavery. The man who stole his purse stole trash ; 
but he who thought he could vindicate the possession of one human 
being by another — the selling of soul and body — the separation of a 
father from his offspring, or the mother from the infant she had reared 
— was a man whom he would not answer with words, nor with blows, 
because the time for the latter had not yet arrived. (Cheers.) A 
lie was stamped on the American constitution ; for when a parliament 
of boroughmongers in Westminster thought to put their long fingers 
across the Atlantic into the pockets of the Americans, and take out 
as much as they pleased, the Americans turned round and appealed 
to justice ; and when they laid the foundation of their liberty, they 
began by saying, " We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all 
men are born free and equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." But the man who could not vote in 
the assembly of the nation without admitting the declaration he had 
just quoted, had the atrocious, the murderous injustice to hold his 
brother man in slavery. (Cheers.) The Americans must abolish 
slavery, or call a general convention of the states to blot out the first 
sentence of their declaration of independence, otherwise they would 
write themselves down liars. He formerly, however, had some con- 
solation, even when he thought of the continuation of slavery in 
America. He thought there were men employed there in mitigating 



DANIEL O CONNELL. 171 

the evil, and establishing the principle of universal emancipation. 
He heard of the colony of Liberia ; he read puffs of it in the news- 
papers ; and he saw, day after day, declarations of its importance 
towards liberating the slave. He was waited upon by grave per- 
sonages, who appeared to detest slavery as much as he did himself, 
and they informed him that the establishment of that colony would be 
the destruction of slavery. He took them at their word, and was 
glad to have another corps in the cause of humanity. He had not 
read the real history nor the real character of the colony, but he had 
been enhghtened by what he had heard that day ; and he would read 
to the meeting one quotation from the third volume of the " African 
Repository," page 107, that they might be enlightened also : — "It is 
no abolition society ; it addresses as yet arguments to no master." 
What harm would it have been to argue with the master? What an 
admirable society the Colonization Society must be, that would not, 
for fear of offending the gentility of the master, tell him that he ought 
not to have a slave ! Yet this was an institution which had come 
before the British public professing to be an instrument of humanity. 
" And disavows, with horror, the idea of offering temptations to any 
slave" — temptations to be free — to have a right to go with his wife 
and family where he pleased — to work for whom he pleased, and not 
for any body else. (Cheers.) ! the negro, who toiled from the 
rising sun to sun-down — who labored in the cultivation of a crop he 
would never reap — who came home weary, and faint, and disheart- 
ened, and heart-sick, to find in his little hut creatures that were to 
run in the same career — would they not tell him of a period when his 
toil should be at an end? no, not a word ! (Cheers.) " Offer- 
ing temptations to any slave." It denies the design of attempting 
emancipation ! Humble as he was, and feeble as his voice might be, 
yet deafening the sound of the westerly wave, and riding against the 
blast as thunder did, it should reach America, and tell the black man 
that the time of his emancipation was come, and the oppressor, that 
the period of his injustice was terminated. "It denies the design 
of attempting emancipation, either partial or general ;" — that was the 
society they were called upon to support. Was he right in asking 
the meeting to disclaim the agent of that society? — Speech in London 
on the subject of African Colonization, July, 1833. 

Mr. O'Connell then congratulated the friends of freedom on the 
unity of sentiment that bound them together in the holy cause in 
which they were engaged. AVhatever differences of rehgious behef, 
continued he, might exist among them, these were left to that God 
who alone could determine which of them was right. But all would 
agree with him, that of " these three things. Faith, Hope, and Charity, 
the greatest was Charity." (Cheers.) Animated by that principle, 
they had joined their exertions, and had been already so far success- 
ful. He trusted that their phalanx would become yet more close and 
serried, as they pressed forward in the struggle, and that they would 
still advance till they secured the full fruits of their victory in unqua- 



172 DANIEL o'cOffNELL. 

lified emancipation. (Cheers.) And when this shall have been 
accomplished, let them come with another broadside on the United 
States of America. (Laughter.) He had, himself, given the Ameri- 
cans two or three good hard thumps ; for which they had paid him 
wages in abuse and scurrility. He wa? satisfied that they had done 
so. He was accustomed to receive such wages in return for his 
labors. He had never done good but he was vilified for his pains ; 
and he felt that he could not sleep soundly were such opponents to 
cease abusing him. (Cheers.) He would continue to earn such 
wages. (Cheers.) By the blessing of God he would yet trample 
on the serpent of slave-owning cupidity, and triumph over the hiss of 
the foul reptile which marked its agony and excited his contempt. 
The Americans, in their conduct toward the slaves, were traitors to 
the cause of human liberty, foul detractors of the democratic princi- 
ple which he had cherished throughout his political life, and blas- 
phemers of that great and sacred name which they pretended to 
recognise. For, in their solemn league and covenant, the declara- 
tion of American Independence, they declared that all men (he used 
their own words) have certain " inalienable rights," — these they 
defined to be, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To main- 
tain these, they pledged themselves with ail the solemnity of an oath, 
in the presence of Almighty God. That aid which they had invoked 
from heaven had been awarded to them, but they had violated their 
awfully solemn compact with the Deity, and set at nought every prin- 
ciple which they professed to hold sacred, by keeping two and a half 
millions of their fellow-men in bondage. In reprobation of that dis- 
graceful conduct, his humble voice had been heard across the wide 
waves of the Atlantic. Like the thunder-storm in its strength, it had 
careered against the breeze, armed with the lightning of Christian 
truth. (Great cheering.) And, let them seek to repress it as they 
may — let them murder and assassinate in the true spirit of Lynch 
law ; the storm would wax louder and louder around them, till the 
claims of justice became too strong to be withstood, and the black 
man would stand up too big for his chains. It seemed, indeed — he 
hoped what he was about to say was not profanation — as if the curse 
of the x^lmighty had already overtaken them. For the first time in 
their political history, disgraceful tumult and anarchy had been wit- 
nessed in their cities. Blood had been shed without the sanction of 
law, and even Sir Robert Peel had been enabled — but he was here in 
danger of becoming political. (Cries of no, no — go on, and cheers.) 
^Vell, then, even Sir Robert Peel had been enabled to taunt the 
Americans with gross inconsistency and lawless proceedings. He 
differed from Sir Robert Peel on many points. On one point, how- 
ever, he fully agreed with him. Let the proud Americans learn that 
all parties in this country unite in condemnation of their present con- 
duct ; and let them also learn that the worst of all aristocracies is 
that which prevails in America — an aristocracy which had been aptly 
denominated that of the human skin. The most insufferable pride 
was that shown by such an aristocracy. And yet he must confess 



PANISL O'CONNELL. 173 

that he could not understand such pride. He could understand the 
pride of noble descent. He could understand why a man should 
plume himself on the success of his ancestors, in plundering the 
people some centuries ago. He could understand the pride arising 
from immense landed possessions. He could understand even the 
pride of wealth, the fruit of honest and careful industry. But when 
he thought of the color of the skin making men aristocratic, he felt 
his astonishment to vie with his contempt. Many a white skin covered 
a black heart ; yet an aristocrat of the skin was the proudest of the 
proud. Repubhcans were proverbially proud, and therefore he de- 
lighted to taunt the Americans with the superlative meanness, as well 
as injustice, of their assumed airs of superiority over their black 
fellow-citizens. (Cheers.) He would continu*^ to hurl his taunts 
across the Atlantic. These would ascend the Mississippi, they would 
descend the Missouri, and be heard along the banks of the Ohio and 
the Monongahela, till the black man would leap delighted to express 
his gratitude to those who had effected his emancipation. (Cheers.) 
And, O — but perhaps it was his pride that dictated the hope — that 
some black O'Connell might rise among his fellow-slaves (tremen- 
dous cheers), who would cry agitate, agitate, agitate (renewed cheer- 
ing), till the two millions and a half of his fellow-suiferers learned the 
secret of their strength — learned that they were two millions and a 
half. (Enthusiastic cheers.) If there was one thing which more 
than another could excite his hatred, it was the laws which the Ameri- 
cans had framed to prevent the instruction of their slaves. To teach 
a slave to read was made a capital offence. (Shame.) To be seen 
in company with a negro who could write was visited with imprison- 
ment (shame), and to teach a slave the principles of freedom, was 
punished with death. Were these human laws, it might be asked 1 
Were they not laws made by wolves of the forest 1 No, they were 
made by a congregation of two-legged wolves — American wolves — 
monsters in human shape, who boast of their liberty and of their hu- 
manity, while they carry the hearts of tigers within them. (Cheers.) 
With regard to the attacks which had been made upon his countrymen 
by such men, he rejoiced at them. (Cheers.) These proved to him 
that the sufferings to which they had been subjected in the land of 
their birth, had not been lost upon them ; but that their kindly affec- 
tions had been nurtured into strength, and that they had ranged them- 
selves on the side of the oppressed slave. (Cheers.) — Speech in 
Glasgow, Scotland, Sept. 1836. 



174 



GREAT BRITAIN WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. 



GREAT BRITAIN. 




Act of 3 and 4 William IV, chapter Ixxiii, § 12. 

Be it enacted, that all and every of the persons, who, on the first 
day of August, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, shall be 
holden in slavery within any such British colony as aforesaid, shall, 
upon, and from and after the first day of August, one thousand eight 
hundred and thirty-four, become and be to all intents and purposes, 
FREE and discharged of, and from all manner of slavery, and shall 
be absolutely and for ever manumitted; and that the children thereafter 
to be born to any such persons, and the offspring of such children, shall 
in like manner be free from their birth ; and that from and after the 
first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, 
SLAVERY shall be, and is hereby utterly and for ever ABOLISHED 
and declared unlawful throughout the British colonies, plantations, 
and possessions abroad. 



WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. 



Those rights which God and nature have established, and are, 
therefore, called natural rights — such as life and liberty — need not the 
aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than 
they are ; neither do they receive any additional strength when de- 
clared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no 
human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the 
owner himself shall commit some act which amounts to a forfeiture. 

The first and primary end of all human laws is, to maintain and 
regulate those absolute rights of individuals. The absolute rights of 
man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know 
good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which 
appear to him most desirable, are usually summed up in one general 
ppellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This 



WILLIAM BEST GRANVILLE SHARP. 176 

natural liberty consists, properly in a power of acting as one thinks 
fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature ; being 
a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his 
creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will. But every 
man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, 
as the price of so valuable a purchase ; and, in consideration of 
receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to 
conform to those laws which the community has thought proper to 
establish. 

These rights and liberties are no other than either that residuum 
of natural liberty which is not required by the laws of society to be 
sacrificed to public convenience ; or else those civil privileges which 
society hath engaged to provide in lieu of the natural liberties so given 
up by individuals. — These are, the right of personal security, the right 
of personal liberty, and the right of private property. — Commentaries. 

[See also "John Wesley," in this compilation.] 



WILLIAM BEST. 

It is a matter of pride for me to recollect, that while economists 
and politicians were recommending to the Legislature the protection 
of this traffic, and senators were framing laws for its promotion, and 
declaring it a benefit to the country, — the judges of the land, above 
the age in which they lived, standing upon the high ground of natural 
right, and disdaining to bend to the lower doctrine of expediency, 
declared that slavery was inconsistent with the genius of the English 
Constitution, and that human beings could not be the subject matter 
of property. As a lawyer, I speak of that early determination, when 
a different doctrine was prevailing in the senate, with a considerable 
degree of professional pride. 



GRANVILLE SHARP. 

I might allege, indeed, that many of the plantation laws (like every 
act that contains any thing which is malum in se, evil in its own nature) 
are already null and void in themselves ; because they want every 
necessary foundation to render them valid, being absolutely contra- 
dictory to the laws of reason and natural equity, as well as to the laws 
of God. Yet, as many of them (to the disgrace of the English name) 
have been long in force, and have had the formal assent of kings, they 
will require a formal repeal by all the parties, in order to preserve, in 
each branch of the Legislature, that reciprocal faith, which is due to 
all solemn compacts. 

That your lordship may see the absolute necessity of such a measure, 
I have likewise sent a short, lively representation in MS, of the present 
state of slavery in Maryland. 



176 GRANVILLE SHARF. 

" But whether I shall go thither or return home, I am yet undeter- 
mined ; indeed nowhere shall I stay long from England; for I had much 
rather enjoy the bare necessaries of life there, than the most affluent 
circumstances in this country of most wretched slavery. * * * 
There are four things under the sun, which I equally abhor and 
abominate, viz. slavery, licentiousness, pride, and impudence, all which 
abound here, in a monstrous degree. 

" The punishments of the poor negroes and convicts, are beyond all 
conception, being entirely subject to the will of their savage and 
brutal masters. They are often punished for not doing more than 
strength and nature will admit of; and sometimes because they can- 
not on every occasion, fall in with their wanton and capricious humors. 
One punishment is to flay their backs with cowhides, or other instru- 
ments of barbarity, and then pour on hot rum, superinduced with brine 
or pickle, rubbed in with a corn husk, in the scorching heat of the 
sun. For certain, if your judges were sensible of the shocking treat- 
ment of the convicts here, they would hang every one of them, as 
infinitely less punishment ; and transport only those, whose crimes 
deserve the severest death. Better be hanged seven hundred times, 
than serve seven years here : and there is no redress, for magistrates 
and all are equally interested and criminal. If I had a child, I had 
rather see him, the humblest scavenger in the streets of London, than 
the loftiest tyrant in America, with a thousand slaves at his beck." 

Old Jewry, 18th February, 1772. 

In connexion with this letter, Granville Sharp adverting to the 
existing slave laws of the colonies, says in his journal of the same 
day, (18th Feb. 1772) " If such laws are not absolutely necessary for 
the government of slaves, the law-makers must unavoidably allow 
themselves to be the most cruel and abandoned tyrants upon earth, 
and, perhaps, that ever were on earth. But, on the other hand, if it be 
said that it is impossible to govern slaves, without such inhuman sever- 
ity and detestable injustice, the same is an invincible argument against 
the least toleration of slavery among Christians ; because temporal 
profits, cannot compensate the forfeiture of everlasting welfare — that 
the cries of these much injured people vAll certainly reach heaven — 
that the Scriptures denounce a tremendous judgment against the man, 
who shall offend one little one — that it were better for the nation that 
their American dominions had never existed, or even that they had sunk 
in the sea, than that the kingdom of Great Britain should be loaded 
with the horrid guilt of tolerating such abominable wickedness," &c. 

It ought to be remembered that while Granville Sharp thus boldly 
remonstrated with the government of his country, he filled a govern- 
ment situation and was dependant for his present subsistence, and for 
his future prospects in life, upon the ministry of the day. — Life of 
Sharp by Charles Stuart. 



THOMAS CLARKSON WM. WILBERFORCE. 177 



THOMAS CLARKSON. 

I passed through no town in which some individual had not left off 
the use of sugar. In the smaller towns there were from ten to fifty 
by estimation, and in the larger, from two to five hundred, who had 
made this sacrifice to virtue. These were of all ranks and parties. 
Rich and poor, churchmen and dissenters, had adopted the measure. 
Even grocers had left off" trading in the article in some places. In 
gentlemen's families, where the master had set the example, the serv- 
ants had often voluntarily followed it ; even children, capable of under- 
standing the African's sufferings, excluded, with the most virtuous 
resolution, the accustomed sweets from their hps. By the least 
computation I could make, from notes taken down in my journey, no 
fewer than three hundred thousand (300,0(jO) persons had abandoned 
the use of sugar. 

This account of the manner in which light and information proceed 
in a free country, furnishes us with some valuable knowledge. It 
shows us, first, the great importance of education ; for all they who 
can read may become enlightened. They may gain as much from 
the dead as from the living. They may see the sentiments of former 
ages. Thus they may contract, by degrees, habits of virtuous incli- 
nation, and become fitted to join with others in the removal of any of 
the evils of life. 

It shows us, secondly, how that encouraging maxim may become 
true. That no good effort is ever lost. For if he, who makes the 
virtuous attempt, should be prevented by death from succeeding in it, 
can he not speak through the tomb 1 Will not his w orks still breathe 
his sentiments upon it ? May not the opinions, and the facts, which 
he has recorded, meet the approbation of ten thousand readers of 
whom it is probable, in the common course of things, that some will 
branch out of him as authors, and others as actors or laborers, in tho 
same cause 1 



PARLIAMENTARY SPEECHES, 

[From Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-trade.] 
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 

It was ridiculous to say that men would be bound by their interest, when gain 
or ardent passion urged them. It might as well be asserted that a stone could not 
be thrown into the air, or a body move from place to place, because the principles 
of gravitation bouvd them to the surface of the earth. If a planter found himself 
reduced in his profits, he did not usually dispose of any part of his slaves ; and his 
own gratifications were never given up, so long as there was a possibility of making 
any retrenchment in the allowance of his slaves. 

Europe, three or four centuries ago, was in many parts as barbarous as Africa is 
at present, and chargeable with as bad practices. For, what would be said, if so 
late as the middle of the thirteenth century, he could find a parallel there for the 

23 



178 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 

slave-trade ? Yes. This parallel was to be found even in England. The people 
of Bristol, in the reign of Henry VII, had a regular market for children, which were 
bought by the Irish ; but the latter having experienced a general calamity, which 
they imputed as a judgment from Heaven, on account of this wicked traffic, abol- 
ished it. 

Above all, the state of degradation to which they were reduced, deserved to be 
noticed ; as it produced an utter inattention to them as moral agents. They were 
kept to work under the whip like cattle. They were left totally ignorant of morality 
and rehgion. There was no regular marriage among them. Hence promiscuous 
intercourse, early prostitutions, and excessive drinking, were material causes of their 
decrease. 

" Mr. Ross conceived a master had a right to punish his slave in whatever man- 
ner he might think proper." The same was declared by numberless other witnesses. 
Some instances indeed had lately occurred of convictions. A master had wantonly 
cut the mouth of a child, of six months old, almost from ear to ear. But did not 
the verdict of the jury show, that the doctrine of calling masters to an account was 
entirely novel ; as it only pronounced him " Guilty, subject to the opinion of the 
court, if immoderate correction of a slave by his master be indictable !" The court 
determined in the affirmative; and what was the punishment of this barbarous 
act ? A fine of forty shillings currency, equivalent to about twenty-five shillings 
sterling. It was in evidence, that they were in general under-fed. 

The fact was, that these [the managers] sought to establish their characters by 
producing large crops at a small immediate expense ; too little, considering how 
far the slaves might suffer from ill treatment and excessive labor. The pursuit of 
such a system was a criterion forjudging of their characters, as both Mr. Long and 
Mr. Otley had confessed. But he hoped the committee would attend to the latter 
part of the assertion of Captain Smith. Yes ; this trade, while it injured the con- 
stitutions of our sailors, debased their morals. Of tliis, indeed, there was a barbar- 
ous illustration in the evidence. A slave-ship had struck on some shoals, called 
the Morant Keys, a few leagues from the east end of Jamaica. The crew landed 
in their boats, with arms and provisions, leaving the slaves on board in their irons. 
This happened in the night. When morning came, it was discovered that the 
negroes had broken their shackles, and were busy in making rafts ; upon which 
afterwards they had placed their women and children. The men attended upon 
the latter, swimming by their side, whilst they drifted to the island where the crew 
were. But what was the sequel ? From an apprehension that the negroes would 
consume the water and provision, which had been landed, the crew resolved to 
destroy them as they approached the shore. They killed between three and four 
hundred. Out of the whole cargo only thirty-three were saved, who, on being 
brought to Kingston, were sold. 

In answer to a suggestion of regulating the treatment of slaves by law, he asked, 
How could any laws made by legislatures be effectual, whilst the evidence of 
negroes was in no case admitted against white men ? What was the answer of 
Grenada? Did it not state, "that they, who were capable of cruelty, would in 
general be artful enough to prevent any but slaves being witnesses of the fact? 
Hence it had arisep, that when positive laws had been made, in some of the islands, 
for the protection of the slaves, they had been found almost a dead letter. Besides, 
by what law would you enter into every man's domestic concerns, and regulate the 
interior economy of his house and plantation ? This would bo something more 
than a general excise. Who would endure such a law? And yet on all these 
and innumerable other minutia? must depend the protection of the slaves, their 
comforts, and the probability of their increase. The provisions of the Directorio 
had been but of little more avail in the Portuguese settlements, or the institution 
of a Protector of the Indians, in those of the Spaniards. But what degi?e of pro- 
tection the slaves would enjoy might be inferred from the admission of a gentleman, 
by whom this very plan of regulation had been recommended, and who was himself 
no ordinary person, but a man of discernment artd legal resources. He had pro- 
posed a limitation of the number of lashes to be given by the master or overseer for 
one offence. But, after all, he candidly confessed, that his proposal was not likely 
to be useful, while the evidence of slaves continued inadmissible against their mas- 
ters. But he could even bring testimony to the inefficacy of such regulations. A 
wretch in Barbadoes had chained a negro girl to the floor, and flogged her till she 



WILLIAM WILBERFORCK. 179 

Was nearly expiring. Captain Cook and Major Fitch, hearing her cries, broke 
open the door, and found her. The wretch retreated from their resentment, but 
cried out exultingly, "that he had only given her thirty-nine lashes (the number 
limited by law) at any one time; and that he had only inflicted this number three 
times since the beginning of the night," adding that he would prosecute them for 
breaking open his door; and that he would flog her to death for ail any one, if he 
pleased ; and that he would give her the fourth thirty-nine before morning. 

For his own part, he declared that, interested as he might be supposed to be in 
the final event of the question, he was comparatively indifferent as to the present de- 
cision of the house upon it. Whatever they might do, the people of Great Britain, 
he was confident, would abolish the slave-trade, when, as would then soon happen, 
its injustice and cnielty should be fairly laid before them. It was a nest of serpents, 
which would never have existed so long, but for the darkness in which they lay 
hid. The light of day would be now let in upon them, and they would vanish 
from the sight. For himself, he declared he was engaged in a work, which he 
would never abandon. The consciousness of the justice of his cause M'ould carry 
him foi-ward, though he were alone. Let us not, he said, despair. It is a blessed 
cause ; and success, ere long, will crown our exertions. Alread}' we have gained 
one victory. We have obtained for these poor creatures the recognition of their 
human nature, which for a while was most shamefully denied them. This is the first 
fruits of our efforts. Let us persevere, and our triumph will be complete. Never, 
never will we desist, till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name ; 
till we have released ourselves from the load of guilt imder which we at present 
labor ; and till we have extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic, which our 

Eosterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarcely believe 
ad been suffered to exist so long, a disgrace and a dishonor to our country. 

If aristocracy had been thought a worse form of government than monarchy, be- 
cause the people had many tyrants instead of one, how objectionable must be that 
form of it, which existed in our colonies ! Arbitrary power could be bought there 
by any one, who could buy a slave. The fierceness of it was doubtless restrained 
by an elevation of mind in many, as arising from a consciousness of superior rank 
and consequence : but alas ! it was too often exercised there by the base and vulgar. 
As for the cure of this monstrous evil, he had shown last j'ear, that internal regula- 
tions would not produce it. These could have no effect, while the evidence of 
slaves was inadmissible. What would be the situation of the bulk of the people 
of this country, if only gentlemen of five hundred a year were admitted as evidences 
in our courts of law? 

He would now say a few words relative to the Middle Passage, ]>rincipally to 
show, that regulations could not effect a cure of the evil there. Mr. Isaac Wilson 
had stated in his evidence, that the ship, in which he sailed, only three years ago, 
was of three hundred and seventy tons ; and that she carried six hundred and two 
slaves. Of these she lost one hundred and fifty-five. There were three or four 
other vessels in company with her, and which belonged to the same owners. One 
of these carried four hundred and fifty, and buried t\^ o hundred ; another caiiied 
four hundred and sixty-six, and buried seventy-three; another five hundred and 
forty-six, and buried one hundred and fifty-eight ; and from the four together, after 
the landing of their cargoes, two hundred and twenty died. He fell in with another 
vessel, which had lost three hundred and sixty-two, but the number which had 
been bought, was not specified. Now if to these actual deaths, during and imme- 
diately after the voyage, we were to add the subsequent loss in the seasoning, and 
to consider that this would be greater than ordinary in cargoes which were landed 
in such a sickly state, we should find a mortality, which if it were only general for 
a few months would entirely depopulate the globe. 

He would advert to what Mr. Wilson said, when examined, as a surgeon, as to 
the causes of these losses, and particularly on board his own ship where he had the 
means of ascertaining them. The substance of his reply was this: that most of 
the slaves labored under a fixed melancholy, which now and then broke out into 
lamentations and plaintive songs, expressive of the loss of their relations, friends, 
and country. So powerful did this sorrow operate, that many of them attempted 
in various ways to destroy themselves, and three actually effected it. Others ob- 
stinately refused to take sustenance ; and wiien the whip and other violent means 
were used to compel them to eat, they looked up in the face of the officer, who 



180 WltLIAM FITT. 

unwillingly executed this painful task, and said with a smile, in their own language, 
"presently we shall be no more." This, their unhappy state of mind, produced a 
general languor and debility, which were increased in many instances by an 
unconquerable aversion to food, arising partly from sickness, and partly, to use the 
lano'uage of slave captains, from sulkiness. These causes naturally produced the 
flux. The contagion spread ; several were carried off daily ; and the disorder, aided 
by so many powerful auxiliaries, resisted the power of medicine. A nd it was worth 
while to remark, that these grievous sufferings were not owing either to want of 
care on the part of the owners, or to any negligence or harshness of the captain ; 
for Mr. Wilson declared, that his ship was as well fitted out, and the crew and 
slaves as well treated, as any body could reasonably expect. 

He would now go to another ship. That, in which Mr. Claxton sailed as a 
surgeon, afforded a repetition of all the horrid circumstances which had been de- 
scribed. Suicide was attempted, and effected ; and the same barbarous expedients 
were adopted to compel the slaves to continue an existence, which they considered 
as too painful to be endured. The mortality also was as great. And yet here 
again the captain was in no wise to blame. But tliis vessel had sailed since the 
regulating act. Nay, even in the last year the deaths on ship board would be found 
to be between ten and eleven per cent, on the whole number exported. In truth, 
the house could not reach the cause of this mortality by all their regulations. Until 
they could cure a broken heart, until they could legislate for the affections, and bind 
by their statutes the passions and feehngs of the mind, their labor would be in vain. 

Such were the evils of the passage. But evils were conspicuous everywhere in 
this trade. Never was there indeed a system so replete with wickedness and 
cruelty. To whatever part of it we turned our eyes, whether to Africa, the Middle 
Passage, or the West Indies, we could find no comfort, no satisfaction, no relief. 
It was the gracious ordinance of Providence, both in the natural and moral world, 
that good should often arise out of evil. Hurricanes cleared the air ; and the propa- 
gation of truth was promoted by persecution. Pride, vanity, and profusion con- 
tributed often, in their remoter consequences, to the happiness of mankind. In 
common, what was itself evil and vicious was permitted to carry along with it some 
circumstances of palliation. The Arab was hospitable ; the robber brave. We did 
not necessarily find cruelty associated with fraud, or meanness with injustice. But 
here the case was far otherwise. It was the prerogative of this detestable traffic to 
separate from evil its concomitant good, and to reconcile discordant mischiefs. It 
robbed war of its generosity ; it deprived peace of its security ; we saw in it the 
vices of polished society, without its knowledge or its comforts ; and the evils of 
barbarism without its simplicity. No age, no sex, no rank, no condition, was 
exempt from the fatal influence of this wide- wasting calamity. Thus it attained to 
the fullest measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisticated wickedness; and, scorning all 
competition and comparison, it st^jod without a rival in the secure, undisputed pos- 
session of its detestable pre-eminence. 

Smith, who was sent out by the Royal African Company in 1726, assures us, 
"that the discerning natives account it their greatest unhappiness, that they were 
ever visited by the Europeans. They say that we Christians introduced the traffic 
of slaves ; and that before our coming they lived in peace. But, say they, where- 
ever Christianity comes, there come swords, and guns, and powder, and ball, along 
with it." 

WILLIAM PITT. 

Mr. Pitt rose, and said, that from the first hour of his having had the honor to 
sit in parliament down to the present, among all the questions, whether political or 
personal, in which it had been his fortune to take a share, there never had been one 
m which his heart was so deeply interested as in the present ; both on account of 
the serious principles involved, and the consequences connected with it. 

The present was not a mere question of feeling. The argument, which ought 
in his opinion to determine the committee, was, that the slave-trade was unjust It 
was, therefore, such ;i trade as it was impossible for him to support, unless it could 
be first proved to him, that there were no laws of morality binding upon nations ; 
and that it was not the duty of a legislature to restrain its subjects from invading 
the happiness of other countries, and from violating the fundamental principles 
of justiM. 



EDMUND BURKE JAMES MARTIN. 181 

EDMUND BURKE. 

Nothing makes a slave but a degraded man. In proportion as the mind grows 

callous to its degradation, and all sense of manly pride is lost, the slave feels com- 
fort. In fact, he is no longer a man. If he were to define a man, he would say 
with Shakspeare, 

" Man is a being, holding large discourse, 
Looking before and after." 

But a slave was incapable of looking before and after. He had no motive to do 
it. He was a mere passive instrument in the hands of others, to be used at their 
discretion. Though livmg, he was dead as to all voluntary agency. Though mov- 
ing amidst the creation with an erect form, and with the shape and semblance of a 
human being, he was a nullity as a man. 

He said the slave-trade was directly contrary to the principles of humanity and 
justice, and that the state of slavery which followed it, however mitigated, was a 
state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of 
human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist. 

JAMES MARTIN. 

He had been long aware, how much self-interest could pervert the judgment , 
but he was not apprised of the full power of it, till the slave-trade became a subject 
of discussion. For he never could believe that any man, under the influence of 
moral principles, could suffer himself knowingly to carry on a trade, replete with 
fraud, cruelty, and destruction ; with destruction, indeed, of the worst kind, because 
it subjected the sufferers to a lingering death. It was well observed in the petition 
from the University of Cambridge against the slave-trade, "that a firm belief in the 
Providence of a benevolent Creator assured them that no system, founded on the 
oppressions of one part of mankind, could be beneficial to another." He felt much 
concern, that in an assembly of the representatives of a country, boasting itself 
zealous not only for the preservation of its own liberties, but for the general rights 
of mankind, it should be necessary to say a single word upon such a subject ; but 
the deceitfulness of the human heart was such, as to change the appearances of 
truth, when it stood in opposition to self-interest. He had lo lament that even 
among those, whose public duty it was to cling to the universal and eternal princi- 
ples of truth, justice, and humanity, there were found some, who could defend that 
which was unjust, fraudulent, and cruel. 

The doctrines he had heard that evening, ought to have been rcser^'ed for times 
the most flagrantly profligate and abandoned. He never expected then to learn, 
that the everlastmg laws of righteousness were to give way to imaginary, political, 
. and commercial expediency ; and that tiiousands of our fellow-creatures were to be 
reduced to wretcliedness, that individuals might enjoy opulence. Dissenters of 
various denominations, but particularly the duakers, (who to their immortal honor 
had taken the lead in it) had vied with those of the Established Church in this amia- 
ble contest. In short, there had never been more unanimity in the country, than in 
this righteous attempt. 

With such support, and with so good a cause, it would be impossible to fail. 
Let but every man stand forth, who had at any time boasted himself as an English- 
man, and success would follow. But if he were to be unhappily mistaken as to 
the result, we must give up the name of Englishmen. Indeed, if we retained it, 
we should be the greatest hypocrites in the world ; for we boasted of nothing more 
than of our own liberty ; we manifested the warmest indignation at the smallest 
personal insult; we professed liberal sentiments towards other nations; but to do 
these things, and continue such a traffic, would be to deserve the hateful character 
before mentioned. While we could hardly bear the sight of any thing resembling 
slavery, even as a punishment :iuiong ourselves, how could we consistently entail 
an eternal slavery upon others? 

For his part, he should never believe those persons to be sincere, who were loud 
in their professions of love of liberty, if he saw that love confined to the narrovir 
circle of one community, which ought to be extended to the natural rights of evenr 
inhabitant of the globe. 



L 



182 WILLIAM SMITH. 



WILUAM SMITH. 



He wondered how the last speaker could have had the boldness to draw argu- 
ments from scripture in support of the slave-trade. 

Such arguments could be intended only to impose on those, who never took the 
trouble of thinking for themselves. Could it be thought loi a moment, that the good 
sense of the house could be misled by a few perverted or misappUed passages, in 
direct opposition to the whole tenor and spirit of Christianity ; to the theory, he 
might say, of almost every religion which had ever appeared in the world ? What- 
ever might have been advanced, every body must feel, that the slave-trade could 
not exist one hour, if that excellent maxim, " to do to others as we should wish that 
others should do to us," had its proper influence on the conduct of men. 

Nor was Mr. Stanley more happy in his argument of the antiquity and univer- 
sality of slavery. 

Because a practice had existed, did it necessarily follow that it was just? By 
this argument every crime might be defended from the time of Cain. + + * 

That the slaves were exposed to great misery in the islands was true, as well 
from mference as from facts : for what might not be expected from the use of arbi- 
trary power, where the three characters of party, judge, and executioner were united ! 
The slaves too were more capable on account of their passions, than the beasts of 
the field, of exciting the passions of their tyrants. 

To what a length the ill treatment of the.m might be carried, might be learnt from 
the instance which Gen. Tottenham mentioned to have seen in the year 1780 in the 
streets of Bridge Town, Barbadoes : 

*' A youth about nineteen, (to use his own words in the evidence,) entirely naked, 
with an iron collar about his neck, having five long projecting spikes. His body 
both before and behind was covered with wounds. His belly and thighs were 
almost cut to pieces, with running ulcers all over them ; and a finger might have 
been laid in some of the weals. He could not sit down, because his hinder part was 
mortified ; and it was impossible for him to lie down, on account of the prongs of 
his collar." He supplicated the general for relief. 

The latter asked, who had punished him so dreadfully ? The youth answered, 
his master had done it. And because he could not work, this same master, in the 
same spirit of perversion, which extorts from scripture a justification of the slave- 
trade, had fulfilled the apostolic maxim, that he should have nothing to eat. The 
use he meant to make of this instance was to shew the unprotected state of the 
slaves. What must it be, where such an instance could pass, not only unpunished, 
but almost unregarded ! If, in the streets of London, but a dog were to be seen 
lacerated like this miserable man, how would the cruelty of the wretch be execrated, 
who had thus even abused a brute ! 

The judicial punishments also inflicted upon the Negro, showed the low estima- 
tion in which, in consequence of the strength of old customs and deep-rooted preju- 
dices, they were held. 

Mr. Edwards, in his speech to the assembly at Jamaica, stated the following 
case, as one which had happened in one of the rebellions there. Some slaves sur- 
rounded tlic dwelling-house of their mistress. She was in bed with a lovely infant. 
They deliberated upon the means of putting her to death in torment. But in the 
end, one of them reserved her for his mistress ; and they killed her infant with an 
axe before her face. 

" Now," says Mr. Edwards, addressing himself to his audience, "you will think 
that no torments were too great for such horrible excesses. Nevertheless I am of a 
different opinion. I think that death, unaccompanied with cruelty, should be the 
utmost exertion of human authority over our unhappy fellow-creatures." Torments, 
however, were always inflicted in these cases. 

The punishment was gibbeting alive, and exposing the delinquents to perish by 
the gradual effects of hunger, thirst, and a parching sun ; in which situation they 
were known to sufl^er for nine days, with a forfitude scarcely credible, never uttering 
a dingle groan. 

But horrible as the excesses might have been, which occasioned these punish- 
ments, it must be remembered, that they were'committed by ignorant savages, who 
had been dragged from aU they held most dear; whose patience had been exhausted 
by a cruel and loathsome confinement during their transportation ; and whose 
resentment had been wound up to tha Jiighest pitch of fury by the lash of the driver. 



JOHN COURTENAY CHARLES JAMES FOR. 183 

But he would now mention another instance, by way of contrast, out of the evi- 
dence. A child on board a slave ship, of about ten months old, took sulk and 
would not eat. The captain flogged it with a cat ; swearing he would make it eat, 
or kill it. From this and other ill treatment the child's legs swelled. He ordered 
some water to be made hot to abate the swelling. But. even his tender mercies 
were cruel ; for the cook, on putting his hand into the water, said it was too hot. 
Upon this the captain swore at him, and ordered the feet to be put in. This was 
done. The nails and skin came off. Oiled cloths were then put round them. The 
child was at length tied to a heavy log. Two or three days afterwards, the captain 
caught it up again ; and repeated that he would make it eat or kill it. He imme- 
diately flogged it again, and in a quarter of an hour it died. But, after the child 
was dead, whom should the barbarian select to throw it overboard, but the wretched 
mother ? In vain she started from the oflSce. He beat her, till he made her take 
up the child and carry it to the side of the vessel. She then dropped it into the sea, 
turning her head the other way that she might not see it. 

Now it would naturally be asked, was not this captain also gibbeted alive? 
Alas ! although the execrable barbarity of the European exceeded that of the Afri- 
cans before mentioned, almost as much as his opportunities of instruction had been 
greater than theirs, no notice whatever was taken of this horrible action ; and a 
thousand similar cruelties had been committed in tliis abominable trade with equal 
impunity — but he would say no more." 

JOHN COURTENAY. 

The trade, it had been said, was conducted upon the principles of humanity. 
Yes : we rescued the Africans from what we were pleased to call their wretched 
situation in their own country, and then we took credit for our humanity ; because, 
after having killed one half of them in the seasoning, we substituted what we were 
pleased to call a better treatment than that which they would have experienced at 
home. 

It had been said by Mr. Stanley, that the pulpit had been used as an instrument 
of attack on the slave-trade. He was happy to learn it had been so well employed ; 
and he hoped the bishops would rise up in the house of lords, with the virtuous indig- 
nation which became them, to abolish a traflic so contrary to humanity, justice, and 
religion. 

CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Some expressions, which he had used on the preceding day, had been complained 
of as too harsh and severe. He had since considered them ; but he could not pre- 
vail upon himself to retract them ; because, if any gentleman, after reading the evi- 
dence on the table, and attending to the debate!! could avow himself an abettor in 
this shameful traflic in human flesh, it could only be from some hardness of heart, 
or some difficulty of understanding, which he really knew not how to account for. 

Some had considered this question as a question of political, whereas it was a 
question of personal freedom. Political freedom was undoubtedly a great blessing ; 
but, when it came to be compared with personal, it sunk to nothing. To confound 
the two served therefore to render all arguments on either perplexmg and unintel- 
ligible. Personal freedom was the first right of every human being. It was a right, 
of which he who deprived a fellow creature was absolutely criminal in so depriving 
him, and which he who withheld was no less criminal in withholding. He could 
not therefore retract his words with respect to any, who (whatever respect he might 
otherwise have for them) should, by their vote of that night, deprive their fellow 
creatures of so great a blessing. Nay, he would go further. He would say that if 
the house, knowing what the trade was by the evidence, did not by their vote mark 
to all mankind their abhorrence of a practice so savage, so enormous, so repugnant 
to all laws, human and divine, they would consign their characters to eternal 
infamy. 

But what was our motive in the case before us ? To continue a trade which was 
a wholesale sacrifice of a whole order and race of our fellow creatures ; which car- 
ried them away by force from their native country, in order to subject them to the 
mere will and caprice, the tyranny and oppression, of other human beings, for their 
whole natural lives, them ajid their posterity for ever! ! O most monstrous wick- 



184 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

edness ! O unparalleled barbarity ! And, what was more aggravating, this most 
complicated scene of robbery and murder which mankind had ever witnessed, had 
been honouied by the name of trade. 

With respect to the situation of the slaves in their transportation, he knew not 
how to give the house a more correct idea of the horrors of it, than by referring them 
to the printed section of the slave ship ; where the eye must see what the tongue 
must fall short in describing. On this dismal part of the subject he would not 
dwell. He would only observe, that the acts of barbarity, related of the slave cap- 
tains in these voyages, were so extravagant, that they had been attributed in some 
instances to insanity. But was not this the insanity of arbitrary power? Who 
ever read the facts recorded of Nero, without suspecting he was mjid ? Who would 
not be apt to impute insanity to Caligula, or Dominitian, or Caracalla, or Com- 
modus, or Heliogabalus ? Here were six Roman emperors, not connected in blood, 
nor by descent, who, each of them possessing arbitrary power, had been so distin- 
guished for cruelty, that nothing short of insanity could be imputed to them. 

Was not the insanity of the masters of slave ships to be accounted for on the 
same principles? Of the slaves in the West Indies it had been said that they were 
taken from a worse state to a better. An honorable member, INlr. W. Smith, had 
quoted some instances out of tlie evidence to the contrary. He also would quote 
one or two others. A slave under hard usage had run away. To prevent a repe- 
tition of the offence the owner sent for a surgeon, and desired him to cut off the 
man's leg. The surgeon refused. The owner, to render it a matter of duty in the 
surgeon, broke it. ' Now,' says he, ' you must cut it off, or the man will die.' We 
might console ourselves, perhaps, that this happened in a French island ; but he 
would select another instance, wiiich had happened in one of our own. Mr. Ross 
heard the shrieks of a female issuing from an out-house ; and so piercing, that he 
determined to see what was going on. On looking in he perceived a young female 
tied up by her wrists to a beam, entirely-naked ; and in the act of involuntary writh- 
ing and swinging; while the author of her torture was standing below her with a 
lighted torch in his hand, which he applied to all the parts of her body as it ap- 
proached him. What crime this miserable woman had perpetrated he knew not-, 
but the human mind could not conceive a crime warranting such a punishment. 

He was glad to see that these tales affected the house. Would they then sane 
tion enormities, the bare recital of which made them shudder? Let them remember 
that humanity did not consist in a squeamish ear. It did not consist in shrinking 
and starting at such tales as these ; but in a disposition of the heart to remedy the 
evils they unfolded. Humanity belonged rather to the mind than to the nerves. 
But, if so, it should prompt men to charitable exertion. 

One argument had been used, which for a subject so grave was the most ridicu- 
lous he had ever heard. Mr. Alderman Watson had declared the slave-trade to be 
necessary on account of its connexion with our fisheries. But what was this but 
an acknowledgment of the manner, in which these miserable beings were treated? 
The trade was to be kept up, with all its enormities, in order that there might be 
persons to consume the refuse fish from Newfoundland, which was too bad for any 
body else to eat. 

It had been said that England ought not to abohsh the slave-trade, unless other 
nations would also give it up. But what kind of morality was this ? The trade 
was defensible upon no other principle than that of a highwayman. Mere gain was 
not a motive for a great country to rest on, as a justification of any measure. Honor 
was its superior ; and justice was superior to honor. 

With respect to the intellect and sensibility of the Africans, it was pride only, 
which suggested a difference between them and ourselves. There was a remark- 
able instance to the point in the evidence, and which he would quote. In one of 
the .=;Iave ships was a person of conseaucnce; a man, once high in a military sta- 
tion, and with a mind not insensible to the eminence of his rank. He had been 
taken captive and sold ; and was then in the hold, confined promiscuously with the 
rest. Happening in the night to fall asleep, he dreamed that he was in his own 
country ; high in honor and command ; caressed by his family and friends ; waited 
on by his domestics ; and surrounded with all his former comforts in life. But 
waking suddenly, and finding where he was, he was heard to burst into the loudest 
groans and lamentations on 1;he miserable contrast of his present state ; mixed with 
the meanest of liis subjects ; and subjected to the insolence of wretches a tliousand 



PHILIP FRANCIS BISHOP HORSLEY. 185 

times lower than himself in every kind of endowment. He appealed to the house, 
whether this was not as moving a picture of the miserable effects of the slave-trade, 
as could be well imagined. There was one way, by which they might judge of it 
Let them make the case their own. This was the Christian rule of judging ; and, 
having mentioned Christianity, he was sorry to find that any should suppose that it 
had given countenance to such a system of oppression. So far was this from being 
the case, that he thought it one of the most splendid triumphs of this religion, that it 
had caused slavery to be so generally abolished on its appearance in the world. It 
had done this by teaching us, among other beautiful precepts, that, in the sight of 
their Maker, all mankind were equal. He knew, however, that what he had been 
ascribing to Christianity had been imputed by others to the advances which philo- 
sophy had made. Each of the two parties took the merit to itself The philosopher 
gave it to philosophy, and the divine to religion. He should not then dispute with 
either of them ; but as both coveted the praise, why should they not emulate each 
other by promoting this improvement in the condition of the human race ? 

He would now conclude by declaring that the whole country, indeed the whole 
civilized world, must rejoice that such a bill as the present had been moved for, not 
merely as a matter of humanity, but as an act of justice ; for he would put humanity 
out of the case. Could it be called humanity to forbear from committing murder? 
Exactly upon this ground did the present motion stand ; being strictly a question of 
national justice. He thanked Mr. Wilberforce for having pledged himself so 
strongly to pursue his object till it was accompUshed ; and, as for himself, he de- 
clared, that, in whatever situation he might ever be, he would use his warmest 
efibrts for the promotion of this righteous cause. 

PHILIP FRAJ>fCIS. 

Having himself an interest in the West Indies, he thought that what he should 
submit to the house would have the double effect of evidence and argument; and 
he stated most unequivocally his opinion, that the abolition of the slave-trade would 
tend materially to the benefit of the West Indies. — Many had affirmed that the 
slave-trade was politic and expedient; but it was worthy of remark, that no man 
had ventured to deny that it was criminal. Criminal, however, he declared it to be 
in the highest degree ; and he believed it was equally impolitic. Both its inexpe- 
diency and injustice had been established by the honorable mover. 

He instanced an overseer, who, having thrown a negro into a copper of boiling 
cane-juice for a trifling offence, was ptmished merely by the loss of his place, and 
by being obliged to pay the value of his slave. He stated another instance of a girl 
of fourteen, who was dreadfully whipped for coming too late to her work. She fell 
down motionless after it; and was then dragged along the ground, by the legs, to 
an hospital ; where she died. This was a notorious fact. It was published in tlie 
Jamaica Gazette : and it has even happened since the question of the abolition had 
been started. 

The only argument used against such cruelties was the master's interest in the 
slave. But he urged the common cruelty to horses, in which the drivers had an 
equal interest with the drivers of men in the colonies, as a proof that this was no 
security. Pie had never heard an instance of a master being punished for the mur- 
der of his slave. The propagation of the slaves was so far from being encouraged, 
that it was purposely checked, because it was thought more profitable and less 
troublesome to buy a full-grown negro, than to rear a child. He repeated that his 
interest might have inclined him to the other side of the question ; but he did not 
choose to compromise between his interest and his duty; for, if he abandoned his 
duty, he should not be happy in this world ; nor should he desene happiness in 
the ne-xt. 

BISHOP HORSLEY. 

The noble Earl has produced to your lordships a passage in the Levitical Law, 
which enacts that the foreign slave should be the property of his master for ever. 
Whence the noble Eari concludes that the perpetual servitude of foreign slaves waa 
actually sanctioned by the law. But, my lords, I must tell the noble Earl, and I 
must tell your lordships, that the noble Earl has no understanding at all of the 

24 



t86 MR> HUDDLBSTONE. 

technical terms of the Jewish Law. In all the laws relating to the transfer of pro- 
perty, the words /or ever, signify only to the next jubilee. That is the longest /or ever 
which the Jewish law knows, with respect to property. And this law, which makes 
the foreign slave the property of his master for ever, makes him no longer the mas- 
ter's property than to the next jubilee. And with the great attention the noble Earl 
has given to the laws and history of the Jews, he must know that when they were 
carried into captivity, they were told by their prophets that one of the crimes which 
drew down that judgment upon them, was their gross neglect and violation of these 
merciful laws respecting manumission ; and that in contempt and defiance of the 
law, it had been their practice to hold their foreign slaves in sei-vitude, beyond the 
year of jubilee. — Speech in the House of Lords, June 24, 1806. 

Dr. Horsley adverted to what had fallen from the learned counsel, who had sup- 
ported the petitions of the slave-merchants. One of them had put this question to 
their lordships, " If the slave-trade were as wicked as it had been represented, why 
was there no prohibition of it in the Holy Scriptures ?" He tJien entered into a full 
defence of the scriptures on this ground, which he concluded by declaring that, as 
St. Paul had coupled nien-stealers with murderers, he had condemned the slave- 
trade in one of its most productive modes, and generally in all its modes : and here 
it was worthy of remark, that the word used by the apostle on this occasion, and 
which had been translated men-stealers, should have been rendered slave-traders. 
This was obvious from the scholiast of Aristophanes, whom he quoted. It was 
clear, therefore, that the slave-trade, if murder was forbidden, had been literally 
forbidden also. 

The learned counsel, too, had admonished their lordships to beware how they 
adopted the visionary projects of fanatics. He did not know in what direction this 
shaft was shot ; and he cared not. It did not concern him. With the highest 
reverence for the religion of the land, with the firmest conviction of its truth, and 
with the deepest sense of the importance of its doctrines, he \vas proudly conscious, 
that the general shape and fashion of his hfe bore nothing of the stamp of fanati- 
cism. But he begged leave, in his turn, to address a word of serious exhortation to 
their lordships. He exhorted them to beware how they were persuaded to bury, 
under the opprobrious name of fanaticism, the regard which they owed to the great 
duties of mercy and justice, for the neglect of which, (if they should neglect them,) 
they would be answerable at that tribunal, where no prevarication of witnesses 
eould misinform the judge; and where no subtilty of an advocate, miscalling the 
names of things, putting evil for good and good for evil, could mislead his judgment. 

MR. HUDDLESTONE. 

Mr. Huddlestone could not help lifting his voice against tliis monstrous traffic in 
the sinews and blood of man, the toleration of which had long been the disgrace of 
the British legislature. He did not charge the enormous guilt resulting from it upon 
the nation at large ; for the nation had washed its hands of it by the numerous peti- 
tions it had sent against it ; and it had since been a matter of astonishment to all 
Christendom, how the constitutional guardians of British freedom should have sanc- 
tioned elsewhere the greatest system of cruelty and oppression in the world. 

He said that a curse attended this trade even in the mode of defending it. By a 
certain fatality, none but the vilest arguments were brought forward, which cor- 
rupted the very persons, who used them. Every one of these were built on the 
narrow ground of interesj;; of pecuniary profit; of sordid gain; in opposition to 
every higher consideration ; to every motive that had reference to humanity, justice, 
and religion ; or to that great principle, which comprehended them all. Place only 
before the most determined advocate of this odious traffic, the exact image of him- 
self in the garb and harness of a slave, dragged and whipped about like a beast; 
place this image also before him, and paint it as that of one without a ray of hope 
to cheer him ; and you would extort from him the reluctant confession, that he 
would not endure for an hour the misery, to which he condemned his fellow-man 
for life. 

How dared he then to use this selfish plea of interest against the voice of the 
generous sympathies of his nature ? But even upon this narrow ground, the advo- 
cates for the traffic had been defeated. If the unhallowed argument of expediency 



"WHITBREAD ERSKINE CARYSFORT. 187 

was worth any thing when opposed to moral rectitude, or if it were to supersede the 
precepts of Christianity, where was a man to stop, or what line was he to draw 1 
For any thing he knew it might be physically true, that human blood was the best 
manure for the land ; but who ought to shed it on that account ? True expediency, 
however, was, where it ever would be found, on the side of that system, which was 
most merciful and just. 

The condition of the negroes in the West Indies had been lately compared with 
that of the Hindoos. But no barbarous sounds of cracking whips reminded him, 
tliat with the form and image of a man, his destiny was that of a beast of the field. 
Let the advocates for the bloody traffic state what they had to set off on their side 
of the question against the comforts and independence of the man, with whom they 
compared the slave. 

SAMUEL WHITBREAD. 

No eloquence could persuade him, that the Africans were torn from their country 

nd their dearest connexions, merely that they might lead a happier life ; or that 

ciey could be placed under the uncontrolled dominion of others without suffering. 

Arbitrary power would spoil the hearts of the best. Hence would arise tyranny on 

the one side, and a sense of injury on the other. Hence the passions would be let 

loose, and a state of jjerpetual enmity would follow. 

He needed only to go to the accounts of those who defended the system of sla- 
very, to show that it was cruel. He was forcibly struck last year by an expression 
of an honorable member, an advocate for the trade, who, when he came to speak 
of the slaves, on selling off the stock of a plantation, said, that they fetched less than 
the common price, because they were damaged I Damaged ! What ! were they 
goods and chattels ? What an idea was this to hold out to our fellow creatures ! 
We might imagine how slaves were treated, if they could be spoken of in such a 
manner. Perhaps tliese unhappy people had fingered out the best part of their 
fives in the service of their master. Able then to do but little, they were sold for 
little ! and the remaining substance of their sinews was to be pressed out by another, 
yet more hardened than the form.er, and who had made a calculation of their vitals 
accordingly. 

THOMAS ERSKINE. 

The Lord Chancellor (Erskine) said, "From information which he could not 
dispute, he was warranted in saying, that on this continent [Africa] husbands were 
fraudulently and forcibly severed from their wives, and parents from their children ; 
and that all the ties of blood and affection were torn up by the roots. He had him- 
self seen the unhappy natives put together in heaps in the hold of a ship, where, 
with es'ery possible attention to them, their situation must have been intolerable. 
He had also heard proved in courts of justice, facts still more dreadfiil than those 
which he had seen. One of these he would just mention. The slaves on board a 
certain ship rose in a mass to liberate themselves ; and having far advanced in the 
pursuit of their object, it became necessary to repel them by force. Some of them 
3'ielded ; some of them were killed in the scuffle ; but many of them actually jumped 
into the sea and were drowned ; thus prefernng death to the misery of their situa- 
tion ; while others hung to the ship, repenting of their rashness, and bewailing with 
frightful noises their horrid fate. Thus the whole vessel exhibited but one hideous 
scene of wretchedness. They, who were subdued, and secured in chains, were 
seized with the flux, which carried many of them off. These things were proved in 
a trial before a British jury, which had to consider, whether this was a loss, which 
fell within the policy of insurance, the slaves being regarded as if they had been 
only a cargo of dead matter. He could mention other instances, but they were 
much too shocking to be described. Surely their lordships could never consider 
such a traffic to be consistent with humanity or justice." 

CARYSFORT. 

Lord Carysfort rose, and said, "that the great cause of abolition had flourished 
by the manner in which it had been opposed. No one argument of solid weight has 
been adduced against it. It had been shown, hut never disproved, that the colonial 



188 GEORGE GRENVILLE. 

laws were inadequate to the protection of the slaves ; that the punishments of the 
latter were most unmerciful ; that they were deprived of the right of self-defence 
against any white man, and, in short, that the system was totally repugnant to the 
principles of the British constitution." 

GEORGE GRENVILLE. 

Lord Grenville then re^d a resolution of the Commons. "This resolution, he 
said, stated first, that the slave-trade was contrary to humanity, justice, and sound 
policy. That it was contrary to humanity was obvious ; for humanity might be 
said to be sympathy for the distresses of others, or a desire to accomplish benevo- 
lent ends by good means. But did not the slave-trade convey ideas the very re- 
verse of the definition? It deprived men of ail those comforts, in which it pleased 
the Creator to make the happiness of his creature to consist, of the blessings of 
society, of the charities of the dear relationships of husband, wife, father, son, and 
kindred ; of the due discharge of the relative duties of these, and of that freedom, 
which in its pure and natural sense, was one of the greatest gifts of God to man. 

" It was impossible to read the evidence, as it related to this trade, without ac- 
knowledging the inhumanity of it and our own disgrace. 

" Another way of keeping up the slave-trade was by the practice of man-stealing. 
The evidence was particularly clear upon this head. This practice included vio- 
lence, and often bloodshed. The inhumanity of it therefore could not be doubted. 

" The unhappy victims, being thus procured, were conveyed, he said, across the 
Atlantic in a manner which justified the charge of inhumanity again. Indeed the 
suffering here was so great, that neither the mind could conceive nor the tongue 
describe it. He had said on a former occasion, that in their transportation there 
was a greater portion of misery condensed within a smaller space, than had ever 
existed in the known world. He would repeat his words, for he did not know, 
how he could express himself better on the subject. And, after all these horrors, 
what was their destiny? It was such, as justified the charge in the resolution 
again : for, after having survived the sickness arising from the passage, they were 
doomed to interminable slavery. 

" He intreated their lordships, to endeavor to conceive the hard case of the un- 
happy victims of it; and as he had led them to the last stage of their miserable 
existence, which was in the colonies, to contemplate it there. They were there 
under the arbitrary will of a cruel task-master from morning till night. When they 
went to rest, would not their dreams be frighttul ? When they awoke, would they 
not awake 

-" only to discover sights of woe, 



Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes 
Tliat comes to all ; but torture without end 
Still urges V 

"They knew no change, except in the humor of their masters, to whom their 
whole destiny was entrusted. V/e might perhaps flatter ourselves with saying, 
that they were subject to the will of Englishmen. But Englishmen were not better 
than others, when in possession of arbitrary power. The very fairest exercise of it 
was a never-failing corrupter of the heart But suppose it were allowed, that self- 
interest might operate some little against cruelty ; yet where was the interest of the 
overseer or the driver? But he knew it would be said, that the evils complained of 
in the colonies had been mitigated. There might be instances of this ; but they 
could never be cured, while slavery existed. Slavery took away more than half of 
the human character. Hence the practice, where it existed, of rejecting the testi- 
mony of the slave : but, if Ijis testimony was rejected, where could be his redress 
against his oppressor ? 

" Having shown the inhumanity, he would proceed to the second point in the 
resolution, or the injustice, of the trade. We had two ideas of justice ; first, as it 
belonged to society by virtue of a social compact ; and secondly, as it belonged to 
men, not as citizens of a community, but as beings of one common nature. In a 
state of nature, man had a right to the fruit of his own labour absolutely to him- 
self; and one of the main purposes, for which he entered into society, was, that 



SHAKSPEARE ^JOHNSON MILTON. 189 

fie might be better protected in the possession of his rights. In both cases, therefore, 
it was manifestly unjust, that a man should be made to labor during the whole of 
his life, i.;id yet have no benefit from his labor. Hence the slave-trade and the 
colonial slaver)' were a violation of the very principle, upon which all law for the 
protection of property was founded. Whatever benefit was derived from that trade 
to an individual, it was derived from dishonor and dishonesty. He forced from 
the unhappy victim of it that, which the latter did not wish to give him ; and he 
gave to ;he same victim that, which he in vain attempted to show, was an equiva- 
lent to the thing he took, it being a thing for which there was no equivalent , and 
which, if he had not obtained by force, he would not have possessed at all. The 
injustice complained of was not confined to the bare circumstance of robbing them 
of the right to their own labor. It was conspicuous throughout the system. They, 
who bought them, became guilty of all the crimes which had been committed m 
procuring them ; and, when they possessed them, of all the crimes which belonged 
to their inhuman treatment. The injustice in the latter case amounted frequently 
to murder. For what was it but murder to pursue a practice, which produced un- 
timely death to thousands of innocent and helpless beings? It was a duty which 
their lordships owed to their Creator, if they hoped for mercy, to do away tms mon- 
strous oppression." 



WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Shylock. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong? 
You have among you many a purchased slave,* 
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, 
You use in abject and in slavish parts. 
Because you bought them : — shall I say to you, 
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs ? 
Why sweat they under burthens ? let their beds 
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates 
Be season'd with such viands? you will answer, 
The slaves are ours : — so do I answer you : 
The pound of flesh, which I demand of him, 
Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it ; 
If you deny me, fie upon your law ! 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

♦ This argument, considered as used to the particular persons, seems conclusive. 
I see not how Venitians or Englishmen, while they practice the purchase and sale 
of slaves, can much enforce or demand the law of doing to others as we would 
that they should do to us. 



JOHN MILTON. 

O execrable son, so to aspire 
Above his brethren, he himself assuming 
Authority usurped from God, not given. 

— Man over men 
He made not lord ; such title to Himself 
Reserving, human left from human free. 

In all things that have beauty, there is nothing to man more comely than liberty. 
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely, above all libertiea. 



190 ALEXANDER POPE JOSEPH ADDISON ROBERT BtTRITS. 



ALEXANDER POPE. 

Some safer world in depths of woods embraced. 
Some happier island in the watery waste ; 
Where slaves once more their native land behold. 
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 

Essay on Man. 

God fix'd it certain, tliat, whatever day 
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away. 

Homer^s Odysiey. 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 

O Liberty, thou goddess heav'nly bright, 
Profiise of bliss, and pregnant with oelight ! 
Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, 
m And smiling plenty leads thy wanton tredn ; 

Eas'd of her load, subjection grows more light, 
And poverty looks cheerful in thy sight ; 
Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay, 
Giv'st beauty to the siui, and pleasure to the day. 

Men's passions operate variously, and appear in different kinds of 
actions, according as they are more or less rectified or swayed by 
reason. When one hears of negroes, who, upon the death of their 
masters, or upon changing their service, hang themselves upon the 
next tree, as it sometimes happens in our American plantations, who 
can forbear admiring their fidelity, though it expresses itself in so 
dreadful a manner? What might not that savage greatness of soul, 
which appears in these poor wretches on many occasions, be raised 
to, were it rightly cultivated l And what color of excuse can there 
be for the contempt with which we treat this part of our species ; that 
we should not put them upon the common foot of humanity ; that we 
should only set an insignificant fine upon the man who murders them ; 
nay, that we should, as much as in us lies, cut them off" from the 
prospects of happiness in another world as well as in this ; and deny 
them that which we look upon as the proper means for attaining it I 
Spectator, and Murray^s English Reader. 



ROBERT BURNS. 

If I'm designed yon lordling's slave, 

By Nature's law design'd, 
Why was an independent wish 

Ere planted in my mind ? 
If not, why am I subject to 

His cruelty or scorn ? 
Or why has man the will and power 

To make his fellow mouin ? 



WILLIAM COWPER. 191 

Then let us pray that come it may, 

As come it shall for a' that, 
That sense and worth o'er all the earth 

Shall hear the gree, an' a' that. 
For a' that, an' a' that. 

It's coming yet, for a' that ; 
When man to man, the vvarld all o'er, 

Shall brothers be, an' a' that. 

Here's Freedom to tliem that would read, 

Here's Freedom to them that would write, 
There's none ever feared that the truth should be heard, 

But they whom the truth would indict. 
May Liberty meet with success. 

May Prudence protect it from evil, 
May tyrants and tyranny tine in their mist, 

And wander their way to the devil. 



WILLIAM COWPER. 

Man finds his fellow guilty of a skin 

Not colored like his own ; and having pow'r 

T' enforce the wrong, for such a toorthy cause 

Dooms and devotes him as his lawi'ul prey. 

Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; 

And worse than all, and most to be deplor'd, 

As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 

Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 

With stripes that mercy with a bleeding heart 

Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 

Then what is man ? And what man, seeing this, 

And having human feelings, does not blush 

And hang his head, to think himself a man? 

I would not have a slave to till my ground, 

To carry me, to fan me while I sleep. 

And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 

That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd. 

No ! dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 

Just estimation priz'd above all price, 

I had much rather be myself the slave, 

And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 



The tender ties of parent, husband, friend. 
All bonds of Nature, in that moment end. 
O most degrading of ail ills that wait 
On man, (a mourner in his best estate!) 
All other sorrows virtue may endure, 
And find submission more than half a cure ; 
But Slavery ! ! Virtue dreads it as her grave, 
Patience itself is meanness in a slave. 
Wait, then, the dawning of a brighter day, 
And snap the chain the moment when you may. 
Nature imprints upon whate'er we see 
That has a heart and life in it, " Be Free !" 



Why did all-creating Nature 

Make the plant for which we toil ? 



192 WILLIAM R08C0E. 



Sighs must fan it, tears must water, 

Sweat of ours must dress the soiL 
Think, ye masters, iron-hearted, 

Lolling at your jovial boards, 
Think how many backs have smarted 

For the sweets your cane affords. 
Is there, as ye sometimes tell us. 

Is there one, who reigns on high ? 
Has he bid you buy and sell us. 

Speaking from his throne the sky? 
Ask him, if your knotted scourges, 

Fetters, blood-extorting screws, 
Are the means which duty urges, 

Agents of His will to use ? 
Fleecy locks and black complexion 

Cannot forfeit nature's claim ; 
Skins may difier, but afiijction 

Dwells in white and black the same. 
By our sufferings, since ye brought us 

To the man-degrading mart. 
All sustain'd by patience, taught us 

Only by a broken heart ; 
Deem our nation brutes no longer, 

Till some reason ye shall find 
Worthier of regard, and stronger, 

Than the color of our kind. 
Slaves of gold ! whose sordid dealings 

Tarnish all your boasted powers, 
Prove that you have human feelings, 

Ere you proudly question ours. 

The J^egro'a Complaint. 



WILLIAM ROSCOE. 

Offspring of love divine, Humanity! 

To whom, his eldest born, th' Eternal gave 

Dominion o'er the heart ; and taught to touch 

Its varied stops in sweetest unison ; 

And strike the string that from a kindred breast 

Responsive vibrates ! from the noisy haunts 

Of mercantile confusion, where thy voice 

Is heard not ; irom the meretricious glare 

Of crowded theatres, where in thy place 

Sits Sensibility, with wat'ry eye. 

Dropping o'er fancied woes her useless tear ; — 

Come thou, and weep with me substantial ills ; 

And execrate the wrongs that Afric's sons. 

Torn from their natal shore, and doom'd to bear 

The yoke of servitude in foreign climes, 

Sustain. Nor vainly let our sorrows flow, 

Nor let the strong emotion rise in vain ; 

But may the kind contagion widely spread, 

Till in its flame the unrelenting heart 

Of avarice melt in softest sympathy — 

And one bright blaze of universal love ' 

In grateful incense rises up to Heaven ! 

Form'd with the same capacity of pain, 
The same desire of pleasure and of ease. 
Why feels not man for man ! W hen nature shrinks 
From the slight puncture of an insect's sting, 



HANNAH MORE JAMES MONTGOMERY 193 

Faints, it' not screen'd from sultry suns, and pines 
Beneath the hardship of an hour's delay 
Of needful nutriment ; — when Liberty 
Is priz'd so dearly, that the sUghtest breath 
That ruffles but her mantle, can awake 
To arms unwarlike nations, and can rouse 
Confed'rate states to vindicate her claims : — 
How shall the suff'rer man his fellow doom 
To ills he mourns or spurns at ; tear with strijjes 
His quiv'ring flesh ; with hunger and with thirst 
Waste his emaciate frame ; in ceaseless toils 
Exhaust his vita! powers ; and bind his hmbs 
In galling chains ! Shall he, whose fragile form 
Demands continual blessings to support 
Its complicated texture, air, and fooa. 
Raiment, alternate rest, and kindly skies, 
And healthful seasons, dare with impious voice 
To ask those mercies, whilst his selfish aim 
Arrests the general freedom of their course ; 
And, gratified beyond his utmost wish, 
Debars another from the bounteous store ! 

Wrongs ofjSfrica, 



HANNAH MORE. 

See the dire victim torn from social life, 

The shrieking babe, the agonizing wife ! 

She ! wretch forlorn, is dragg'd by hostile hands 

To distant tyrants, sold to distant lands. 

Transmitted miseries and successive chains, 

The sole sad heritage her child obtains ! 

E'en this last wretched boon their foes deny, 

To live together, or together die. 

By felon hands, by one relentless stroke. 

See the fond links of feeling nature broke ! 

The fibres twisting round a parent's heart, 

Tom from their grasp, and bleeding as they part 

What wrongs, what injuries does Oppression plead. 

To smooth the crime and sanctify the deed ? 

What strange offence, what aggravated sin ? 

They stand convicted — of a darker skin ! 



JAMES MONTGOMERY. 

Lives there a reptile baser than the slave ? 
Loathsome as death, corrupted as the grave. 
See the dull creole, at his pompous board. 
Attendant vassals cringing round their lord; 
Satiate with food, his heavy eyelids close, 
Voluptuous minions fan him to repose ; 
Prone on the noonday oouch he lolls in vain. 
Delirious slumbers rack his maudlin brain ; 
He starts with horror from bewildering dreams, 
His bloodshot eye with fire and frenzy gleams. 
He stalks abroad ; through all his wonted rounds. 
The negro trembles, and the lash resounds, 
And cries of anguish shrilling through the air. 
To distant fields his dread approach declare. 
26 



IM THOMAS CAMFBELL. 

Mark, as he passes, every head declined ; 
Then slowly raised, to curse him from behind. 
This is the veriest wretch on nature's face, 
Own'd by no country, spurn'd by every race ; 
The tether'd tyrant of one narrow span. 
The bloated vampyre of a hving man ; 
His frame, a fungus form, of dunghill birth, 
That taints the air, and rots above the earth : 
His soul ! has he a soul, whose sensual breast 
Of selfish passions is a serpent's nest? 
Who follows, headlong, ignorant, and bUnd, 
The vague brute-instinct of an idiot mind ; 
Whose heart, 'midst scenes of suffering, senseless 'grown, 
E'en from his mother's lap was chilled to stone ; 
Whose torpid pulse no social feelings move; 
A stranger to the tenderness of love ; 
His motley harem charms his gloating eye, 
♦ Where ebon, brown, and olive beauties vie ; 

His children sprung alike from sloth and vice, 
Are born his slaves, and loved at market price. 
Has he a soul ? — With his departing breath, 
A form shall hail him at the gates of death, 
The spectre Conscience ! shrieking through the gloom, 
"Man, we shall meet again beyond the tomb!" 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 

And say, supernal Powers ! who deeply scan 
Heav'n's dark decree, unfathom'd yet by man. 
When shall the world call down to cleanse her shame, 
That embryo spirit, yet without a name, 
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands 
Shall burst the Lybian's adamantine bands ? 
Who, sternly marking on his native soil. 
The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil, 
Shall bid each righteous heart exult, to see 
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free ! 

Yet, yet, degraded man ! th' expected day 
That breaks your bitter cup, is far away ; 
Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed. 
And holy men give scripture for the deed ; 
Scourg'd and debas'd no Briton stoops to save 
A wretch, a coward ; yes, because a slave ! 

Eternal Nature ! when thy giant hand 
Had heav'd the floods, and fix'd the trembling land, 
When life sprung startling at thy plastic call, 
Endless her form, and Man the lord of all ! 
Say, was that lordly form inspir'd by thee 
To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee? 
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil, 
Yok'd with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil; 
Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold ? 
No ! Nature stamp'd us in a heavenly mould ! 
She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge, 
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge ! 
No homeless Lybian, on the stormy deep. 
To call upon hi? country's name and weep ! 

Pleasures of Hope. 



SRASMUS DARWIN — JOHIT STEWART. 19S 



ERASMUS DARWIN. 

Wrench'd the red scourge from proud Oppression's hands, 
And broke, curst Slavery ! thy iron bands. 

E'en now, e'en now, on yonder western shores 
Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars; 
E'en now in Afric's groves with hideous yell 
Fierce Slavery stalks and sUps the dogs of hell; 
From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound 
And sable nations tremble at the sound. — 
— Who right the injured, and reward the brave, 
Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save! 
Throned in the vavdted heart, his dread resort ; 
Inexorable Conscience holds his court; 
With still small voice the plots of guilt alarms. 
Bares his masked brow, his lifted hand disarms; 
But, wrapp'd in night, with terrors all his own. 
He speaks in thunders when the deed is done. 
Hear him, ye Senates ! hear this truth sublime, 
He who allmvs oppressimi shares the crime. 

'^Botanic Garden." 



JOHN STEWART. 

It is from the fatal preponderance of passion over reason, that the 
atrocious and damnable Trade in Human Flesh is sanctified ; an 
act so infamous, that could all the crimes which history records be 
collected and consolidated into one, it would lose its nature of 
atrocity and become a virtue, when placed in comparison with the 
slave-trade, considered in its double flagitiousness of first buying the 
human species and then destroying them. It is inconceivable, that an 
assembly of a nation can be guilty of an act, that no individual who 
has not degraded himself below his species, and familiarized his ear 
to the association of his name with that of villain and scoundrel but 
would feel a horror of committing. Though legislative accomplices 
may cover his shame, and screen him from public censure, yet how, 
in the name of truth, if he possesses a well-organized mind and body, 
and but a common share of reflection, (or rather the pre-eminent and 
characteristic share of an Englishman,) how can he esteem himself, 
when conscience will ever upbraid him with the participation in an 
act whose flagitiousness is so great, that unless he renounces the 
character of man, his very share would be sufficient to sink him into 
the most ignominious contempt, and draw upon him more remorse 
than would the catalogue of all the acted and imagined crimes in 
nature. — The Moral State of Nations. 



196 SIR WILLIAM JONES EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 



SIR WILLIAM JONES. 

I pass with haste by the coast of Africa, whence my mind turns 
with indignation at the abominable traffic in the human species, from 
which a part of our countrymen dare to derive their inauspicious 
wealth. Sugar, it has been said, would be dear if it were not worked 
by blacks ; as if the most laborious, the most dangerous works were 
not carried on in every country by freemen ; in fact, they are so 
carried on with infinitely more advantage, for there is alacrity in a 
consciousness of freedom, and a gloomy, sullen indolence in a con- 
sciousness of slavery. But let sugar be as dear as it may, it is better 
to eat none, to eat honey, if sweetness only be palatable ; better to 
eat aloes or coloquintida, than violate a primary law of nature, im- 
pressed on every heart not imbruted by avarice ; than rob one human 
creature of those eternal rights of which no law upon earth can justly 
deprive him. 



What constitutes a State ? 
Not high raised monuments or labor'd mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate ; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown'd ; 

Not bays and broad arm'd ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride. 

Not starr'd and spangled courts, 
Where low brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride. 

No ! men, high-minded men ! 
With powers as far above dull brutes endued 

In forest, brake, or den. 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 

Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain. 

Prevent the long aini'd blow. 
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ! 

These constitute a State. 

True Politics. 



EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 

It is in vain that they oppose OPINION ; any thing else they may 
subdue. They may conquer wind, water, nature itself; but to the 
progress of that secret, subtile, pervading spirit, their imagination 
can devise, their strength can accomplish, no bar; its votaries they 
may seize, they may destroy ; itself, they cannot touch. If they 
check it in one place, it invades them in another. They cannot build 
a wall across the whole earth ; and even if they could, it would pass 
over its summit ! Chains cannot bind it, for it is immaterial — nor 
dungeons enclose it, for it is universal. Over the faggot and the 
scaffold — over the bending bodies which they pile against its path, it 
sweeps on with a noiseless, but unceasing march. Do they bring 



HENRY BROUGHAM. 197 

armies against it, it presents to them no palpable object to oppose. 
Its camp is the universe ; its asylum the bosoms of their own soldiers. 
Let them depopulate, destroy as they please, to each extremity of 
the earth ; but as long as they have a single supporter themselves — 
as long as they leave a single individual into whom that spirit can 
enter, so long they will have the same labors to encounter, and the 
same enemy to subdue. — TAe Spanish Patriot Riego's Reflections on 
Tyrants. 



HENRY BROUGHAM. 

Tell me not of rights — talk not of the property of the planter 
in his slaves. I deny the right — I acknowledge not the property. 
The principles, the feelings, of our common nature, rise in rebellion 
against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, 
the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws 
that sanction such a claim ! There is a law above all the enactments 
of human codes — the same throughout the world, the same in all 
times — such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced 
the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, 
wealth, and knowledge ; to another, all unutterable woes ; such it is 
at this day : it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of 
man ; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise 
fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor i)lood, they shall reject with indig- 
nation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property in man ! 
In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations. The 
covenants of the Almighty, whether the old or the new, denounce 
such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old rel'er, who 
maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not 
untruly ; for by one shameful compact, you bartered the glories of 
Blenheim for the traffic in blood ! Yet, in despite of law and of 
treaties, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to 
death like other pirates. How came this change to pass 1 Not 
assuredly by parliament leading the way ; but the country at length 
awoke ; the indignation of the people was kindled ; it descended in 
thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the 
winds 

One word before I sit down, and that shall be in reference to those 
other countries which, by a singular coincidence, obtained their 
freedom about the same period when we began our effective struggle 
— the Americans having obtained their political freedom about the 
time when Thomas Clarkson began to agitate the question of the 
slave-trade, and the French having obtained their restoration to free- 
dom in the very same month when Yorkshire enabled us, by the spirit 
which it then exhibited, to accomplish the great object of emancipation, 
for which we had previously so long struggled in vain. That being 
the case, is it not melancholy as it regards France — is it not unspeak- 
ably mournful — nay, is it not absolutely monstrous (I use the term 



19$ THOMAS FOWKLL BUXTON. 

without meaning offence,) as regards America — is it not matter of the 
profoundest wonder, that in a country which boasts of being the freest 
(and, politically speaking, it is one of the freest on the face of the 
earth,) should be the country which seems to cling the most closely 
to the slavery of the negroes, a slavery which, when compared with 
the fetters which they (the Americans) so nobly burst asunder, in 
their resistance to the oppressions of the mother country, may be 
compared to straws laid upon the back of a camel"? (Cheers.) Can 
this endure — can such an anomaly be perpetuated — can so gross, so 
violent, so egregious an inconsistency continue among 13,000,000 of 
enlightened men? I pronounce it impossible. (Hear, hear.) I have 
always stood forward as the fast friend of America. I have no doubt 
that the advice I now give here in a spirit of candor and friendship, 
will be received by her in the spirit in which it is offered. 



THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON. 

Mr. T. F. Buxton, in bringmg forward his promised motion on the 
subject of the slave-trade, observed, that no person who had not wit- 
nessed the atrocities of that abominable traffic, could have an adequate 
conception of the crimes, miseries, and cruelties to which it gave rise. 
He requested the attention of the house to facts which he should lay 
before them from parliamentary documents — facts that indicated the 
extent to which the slave-trade was now carried on. He held in his 
hand a list of importations of slaves into the Brazils. The return 
from the British Consuls from the 1st of January, 1829, to the 30th 
June, 1830, a period of one year and a half, was as follows, viz. : — 





Slaves. 


Ships. 


Died 


on the passage 


Para, 


779 


6 




30 


Maranham, 


1,252 


13 




89 


Pernambuco, 


8,079 


26 




308 


Bahia, 


22,202 


70 




768 


Rio de Janeiro, 


81,956 


200 




7,912 



114,268 315 9,107 

In three years and a half, 150,637 slaves were introduced into 
Brazil through the single port of Rio de Janeiro. But this did not 
include the whole number departed from Africa ; it only extended to 
the number introduced alive : we know nothing of the amount of 
mortality that occurred among the slaves on their passage. In 1830 
the slave-trade had been legally abolished, notwithstanding which, 
however, he was sorry to say it now proceeded with almost as much 
activity as ever. This he gathered from the report of the Minister 
of Marine to the Legislative Ass^embly, which was as follows : — "Rio 
de Janeiro, June 17, 1833. — Well known are the tricks resorted to 
by speculators, as sordid as they are criminal, to continue the dis- 
graceful traffic in slaves, in spite of all the legislative provisions and 



THOtlAB POWELL BUXTON. l&ft 

wders issued respecting it, which have been most scandalously eluded. 
It, therefore, appears necessary to the government to have recourse 
to the most efficacious means, which are, to arm a sufficient number 
of small vessels to form a sort of cordon sanitaire, which may prevent 
the access to our shores of those swarms of Africans that are continu- 
ally poured forth from ships employed in so abominable a traffic." 

Of treaties. — Those which are already in existence had been most ' 
shamefully violated by foreign powers. There were four points to 
which it was necessary to attend in the formation of a perfect treaty 
for the suppression of the slave-trade. In the first place, the slave- 
trade ought to be declared to be piracy ; 2dly, the mutual right of 
search ought to be established ; 3dly, that right ought to extend along 
the whole coast of Africa, where the slave-trade existed ; and 4thly, 
vessels being equipped for the slave-trade should be subject to capture 
and condemnation, though having no slaves on board. Now it so 
happened that in all treaties hitherto drawn up for the suppression of 
the slave-trade, one or other of these points had invariably been 
omitted. It was the most important that there should be one uniform 
treaty on this subject. He was happy to believe that no difficulty 
would be found in inducing France to concur in some effectual treaty 
to put a stop to the traffic in slaves, and he did hope that with regard 
to Spain and Portugal a better feeling began to prevail on this subject 
than had been entertained by former governments of those countries. 
But, whatever might be the disposition of Spain, England had a right 
to demand the effectual co-operation of that country in the suppression 
of the slave-trade. Nothing could be stronger than the language of 
the treaty concluded with Spain, and England had in fact paid 
£400,000 to Spain for the suppression of the slave-trade. 

Before concluding, he would mention one fact, which had made a 
greater impression on his mind than almost any thing else. In addition 
to the desolation which this shameful traffic created in Africa, it was 
the cause of the destruction of not less than 100,000 persons, year 
by year, and this large number of human beings were sacrificed for 
the purpose of enriching miscreants, the acknowledged enemies of 
the human race, who, if justice had been done, would undoubtedly 
have died the death of murderers and pirates. (Hear, hear.) — Speech 
in the British House of Commons, May 12. 1835. 



To the Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society : 

London, April 10, 1835. 

Dear Sir, — I cannot help, at this juncture, expressing to you the 
deep, heartfelt, and cordial interest I take in the progress of the great 
question of the abolition of slavery in your country. Peculiarly 
impeded as it is in many ways, I cannot feel a doubt but that the 
same principle, which carried it through here, will also be found irre- 
sistible in America. I mean the principle, or rather the plain, naked 
truth, that slavery is a crime — and that, therefore, it must be abolished. 

It may be gratifying to you to know that the original document by 



200 ELIZABETH HETRICK. 

which your first Anti-Slavery Society was formed, and signed Benja- 
min Franklin, is in my possession. 

The intelligence v/e receive from all quarters in our West India 
colonies is highly satisfactory. Mr. Hume told me a day or two ago 
that he had received a letter from his relation, Mr. Burnley of Trinidad 
— (who has been of all men the most hostile to our proceedings) — 
stating that his views had entirely altered — and that so far from 
regretting the abolition of slavery, he would not, if he could, return 
to the old system, and this, because the negroes in a state of freedom 
were so much more industrious than they had been as slaves. 

Heartily praying that the abolition of slavery in America, and all 
over the world, may be immediate and peaceful, believe me, your 
faithful friend and coadjutor. 

THOS. FOWELL BUXTON. 



ELIZABETH HEYRICK. 

An immediate emancipation is the object to be aimed at ; it is more 
wise and rational — more politic and safe, as well as more just and 
humane, than gradual emancipation. The interests, moral and political, 
temporal and eternal, of all parties concerned, will be best promoted 
by immediate emancipation. The sooner the planter is obliged to 
abandon a system which torments him with perpetual alarms of insur- 
rection and massacre — which keeps him in the most debasing moral 
bondage — subjects him to a tyranny, of all others the most injurious 
and destructive, that of sordid and vindictive passions ; the sooner he 
is obliged to adopt a more humane and more lucrative policy in the 
cultivation of his plantations ; the sooner the over-labored, crouching 
slave is converted into a free laborer — his compulsory, unremunerated 
toil, under the impulse of the cart-whip, exchanged for cheerful, well 
recompensed industry, — his bitter suflerings for peaceful enjoyment — 
his deep execration of his merciless tyrants, for respectful attachment 
to his humane and equitable masters ; the sooner ihe government and 
the people of this country purify themselves from the guilt of support- 
ing or tolerating a system of such monstrous injustice, productive of 
such complicated ciiormities — the sooner all this mass of impolicy, 
crime, and suffering, is got rid of, the better. 

It behoves the advocates of this great cause, then, to take the most 
direct, the most speedy and eflectual means of accomplishing their 
object. If any can be devised more direct, more speedy and effectual 
or less exceptionable in its operation than that which has been sug- 
gested, let it be immediately adopted; but let us no longer compromise 
the requisitions of humanity and justice for those of an artful and 
sordid policy ; let there be no betraying of the cause by needless 
delay ; delay is always dangerous ; on this momentous question, 
(humanly speaking) it will be fatal, if much longer protracted. 



HARRIET MARTINEAU — BENJAMIN GODWIN. 201 



HARRIET MARTINEAU. 

Labor is the product of mind as much as of body ; and to secure 
that product, we must sway the mind by the natural means — by 
motives. Laboring against self-interest is what nobody ought to 
expect of white men — much less of slaves. Of course every man, 
woman, and child, would rather play for nothing than work for nothing. 

It is the mind which gives sight to the eye, and hearing to the ear, 
and strength to the limbs ; and the mind cannot be purchased. 
Where a man is allowed the possession of himself, the purchaser of 
his labor is benefited by the vigor of his mind through the service of 
his limbs : where man is made the possession of another, the possessor 
loses at once and for ever all that is most valuable in that for which 
he has paid the price of crime. He becomes the owner of that which 
only differs from an idiot in being less easily drilled into habits, and 
more capable of effectual revenge. 

Cattle are fixed capital, and so are slaves : but slaves differ from 
cattle on the one hand, in yielding (from internal opposition) a less 
return for their maintenance ; and from free laborers on the other 
hand, in not being acted upon by the inducements which stimulate 
production as an effort of mind as well as of body. In all three cases 
the labor is purchased. In free laborers and cattle, all the faculties 
work together, and to advantage ; in the slave they are opposed ; and 
•therefore, he is, so far as the amount of labor is concerned, the least 
valuable of the three. The negroes can invent and improve — witness 
their ingenuity in their dwellings, and iheir skill in certain of their 
sports ; but their masters will never possess their faculties, though 
they have purchased their limbs. Our true policy would be to divide 
the work of the slave between the ox and the hired laborer ; we should 
get more out of the sinews of the one and the soul of the other, than 
the produce of double the number of slaves. — Demerara. 



BENJAMIN GODWIN. 

We perceive by this West-Indian view of slave happiness, the 
benevolence of those who oppose the impartation of knowledge to the 
negro mind. Let not a ray of light fall on the mental vision of a 
slave ; let him know nothing of Christianity but a few outward and 
lifeless forms ; make him as stupid and thoughtless as a beast, with 
no reflection on the past, no care for the future, no sense of wrongs, 
no idea of right, no care for his soul, no knowledge that he has one : 
and in this condition give him enough to eat and drink, and allow him 
the indulgence of his sensual appetites, — and you have the model of 
a perfect slave, in the very heaven of his enjoyment! 

But it is further said, that it is the interest of planters to use their 
slaves well; and, therefore, without any reference to a s^nse of 

26 



202 E. S. ABDT. 

justice or to the feelings of humanity, the same principle which is 
sufficient to induce a man to take care of his cattle must operate in 
favor of the slave. That this species of selfishness may, in the 
absence of higher motives, do something for the poor slave, we readily 
admit ; but that it is a sufficient guarantee for his comfort and general 
welfare we deny, for these reasons : first, that this motive where it 
exists, is not so uniform and certain in its operation as to secure its 
object ; and in the next place, that there are cases where there is no 
room for its operation, and where it may even act in direct opposition 
to the welfare of the slave. 

It is a man's interest, we know, to use his cattle well, and to take 
care that those who work them treat them properly; but, notwithstanding 
this, does not the brute creation groan under the cruelties of man? 
How many are injured through mere wantonness ! how many through 
thoughtlessness ! and how many a noble animal has been shamefully 
abused in a moment of passion ! Besides, the owners of cattle are 
not always with them, and may even never see many of them ; and 
men who have no interest in them may have the care and the working 
of them. Certainly, in the opinion of our legislature, this motive was 
not deemed sufficient, or why was an Act of Parliament passed to 
prevent cruelty to animals ? And for similar reasons the interest of 
the slave-owner in his slaves is no sufficient security against ill 
treatment. Thoughtlessness, wantonness, inebriety, the ebullitions of 
anger, or that irritation which blinds the mind even to a man's own 
interests, may work misery to the slave — as in the case of the young 
gentleman, already mentioned, who shot a slave for sport ; or of Mr. 
and Mrs. Moss, for instance, who by a series of cruelties, destroyed 
a female who might long have served them. 

But the interest of the master does not always run parallel with the 
slave's welfare. It may happen that circumstances may be such, 
that a degree of labor which is destructive to the slave may enrich his 
owner ; that the gains arising from an extra effort, during a certain 
state of the markets, may afTord an ample indemnification for the loss 
of a few negroes, and the injury which the rest may receive.* When 
the cause to bo tried is, the master's gain against the slave's comfort 
or life, there is great danger of a verdict against the slave : at least, 
as far as self-interest is concerned. — Lectures on Slavery. 



E. S. ABDY. 

It is a benefit to expose the lie of a sect, a party, a heresy, a fac- 
tion — but most of all it is a benefit to expose the lie of a whole nation, 
and heedless of their boasts and self-gratulations, to bring forth into 

* Many slaves are annually sacrificed upon the sugar and cotton plantations in 
our country. It is calculated by the southern economists, that it is cheaper to use up 
the slaves by requiring extra exertions from them in certain seasons, than to procure 
additional hands only for those seasons. — Am. Ed. 



E. S. ABDT. 203 

broad daylight the dead men's bones and unclean things of the 
whitened sepulchre. 

Now there is no nation on the face of the earth which claims so 
high a place in the admiration, yea, we may say, the adoration of all 
people, tongues, and languages, as the North American Union. The 
vain and vaunting people of this noble portion of the globe are cursed 
with an insatiable thirst for adulation ; they never can praise them- 
selves too much, and never think that others have praised them half 
enough. They extol their constitution, their laws, their customs, 
their manners, their principles, their learning, their science, their 
commercial speculations, their fleets, and their armies with unceasing 
praise. It seems to be inscribed on the bold front of every Yankee, 
" Let every thing that hath breath praise the United States of North 
America.^' They compare themselves with their own rivers and 
forests, their mountains, their lakes, and their plains ; and thus come 
to think their moral excellencies as stupendous as the physical ex- 
cellencies of their soil, and requiring a vast and hyperbolical language 
duly to set them forth. The very reverse, however, is the process 
in the minds of those who approach as calm spectators to discover 
the truth and to detect the lie ; for if our enthusiasm kindles amongst 
the multiplying images of greatness and beauty, if the mind expands 
with exulting thoughts on beholding the vast proportions and gigantic 
splendors of that gorgeous land, we do but sink into a deeper melan- 
choly when we come to study the baseness and grovelling iniquity 
of the human creatures that defile it ; and the magnificence of the 
country only makes its inhabitants the more contemptible. A view 
of the national sin of America, after admiring the natural grandeur of 
their country, is like discovering the object of worship in the old 
temples of Egypt ; where, after the stranger had walked bewildered 
through vistas of superb architecture, he came at last to the filthy 
idol, — a mouthing and obscene Ape, playing its pranks on a throne 
of gold ! And this is the thing to be worshipped in America — a 
mockery and disgrace of the human character " enthroned in the 
West" — a nation of slave-drivers masquerading it with the cap of 
liberty, — a Christian people excelling all the heathen tribes of the 
wojld in systematic wickedness, — a free republic exercising greater 
oppression than was ever heard of in the old king-scourged and 
priest-ridden despotisms of Europe. 



To talk of a slave's labor being due to his master, is to insult 
common sense and common decency. While the latter can coin 
dollars out of the sweat and tears of his victim he will do so. " The 
law allows it, and the court awards it." It is this clause, however, 
in the constitution, which renders the free states tributary to the ambi- 
tion of the slave states, and accessories to all their guilt ; — makes the 
boasted asylum of the persecuted, the prison-house of the unfortunate ; 
and converts the guardians of liberty, into the turnkeys of its assassins. 



204 WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 

I can truly and honestly declare, that the orderly and obliging be- 
haviour I observed among them, the decent and comfortable arrange- 
ments I witnessed in their houses — the anxiety they expressed for the 
education of their children, and their own improvement — the industry 
which was apparent in all about them, and the intelligence which 
marked their conversation — their sympathy for one another, and the 
respect they maintained for themselves — the absence of vindictive 
feeling against the whites, and the gratitude they evinced towards 
every one who treats them with common civility and regard, — far 
surpassed the expectation I had formed, of linding among them 
something more elevated than the instinct of monkeys united to the 
passions of men. They are " not only almost, but altogether such 
as" the white man — except the bonds he has fastened on their bodies 
or their minds. — Residence and Tour in the United States, 1833 — 
1835. 



WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 

If the reader rises from the perusal of these volumes of E. S. 
Abdy with a highly reduced opinion of American intellect and morals, 
and a strong sense of the insult put upon the liberals of Europe by 
the affectation of fraternity with which they have been honored, it 
will be accompanied with an increased hatred of oppression, and 
increased love of liberty as a principle. With a form of government 
vastly more favorable for human improvement than that of their 
English progenitors, the Americans, probably from the eftect of cli- 
mate, which has produced so many other variations in the animal 
kingdom, have gone backward and not forward, and present a carica- 
ture of all the worst qualities of the worst Englishmen of the worst 
times. Slavery is so utterly abhorrent to every respectable individual 
in this country, that it would be a waste of argument to reason against 
its continuance ; while those who have profited by it, hke others who 
have been guilty of nefarious practices, are beyond the pale of reason 
on the subject. 

" The best of men have ever loved repose." And the slave is no 
exception to the general rule, that some stimulus is necessary to 
induce mankind to labor. When no pecuniary bribe is offered him, 
he can by no skill in reasoning be shown the moral obligation under 
which he lies, to exert himself in behalf of his master. And there- 
fore, the ultima ratio of the whip is called in requisition. This is 
used with less or more discretion, according to the temper, the judg- 
ment, the taste, and sometimes perhaps the conscience, of the master 
or mistress. 

The tearing asunder family ties, the banishment, the mart, the 
jealous confinement and surveillance of new masters, the whole 
horrors of the slave-trade, are brought into active operation in the 
heart of the United States, whose citizens the while, expect to sit at 



WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 205 

table with civilized men, and be treated with more reverence than 
the kindred barbarians of Ashantee 

Bad as is the state of the slaves in the more northern states, they 
uniformly regard the South with more horror than our thieves at home 
do the hulks. The loss by death alone to the Louisiana planters, in 
bringing slaves from the North, is estimated at twenty-five per cent. 
The sugar factories and rice swamps, the slaves know to be rapid 
and rough highroads to the grave. And they are well acquainted 
with the stories of the greater rigor of the southern drivers. It is 
true that the more respectable Virginian proprietors decline selling 
their negroes so long as they conduct themselves to their satisfaction, 
and even make this rule in some degree a point of honor. 

So extensive is the brown population, and so varied are tints of 
complexion, that not only are there many slaves who are not distin- 
guishable from whites, for the children of slave mothers are slaves to 
all generations, though the father at every step may have been white, 
but there are actually many instances of slaves being liberated, on 
their proving that they were full-bred white persons, and had been 
kidnapped in their youth and sold. The fairest complexioned slaves 
often bring the highest price, being preferred as body servants. 

Mr. Abdy's book reads a moral lesson to the American people 
which cannot be too much insisted on. It is the right of the civihzed 
world to combine in placing them in quarantine till they are less dis- 
creditable to their ancestors. Will any Englishmen sit at meat with 
a nation that sell one another by weight ? 

It is by no means certain, that civilization did not come to Egypt 
out of Ethiopia ; and it is quite certain that the Indians, who pass 
for " black fellows" in the vocabulary of these white philosophers, 
were a civilized and learned race, when our progenitors were painting 
their skins and roasting one another alive. 

The Americans cannot all have got the iron into their souls, the 
sore remembrance, like what in some families is understood to produce 
the aversion to a rope ; what, for instance, has the blood of the puri- 
tans, or of the men of the civil wars, (of which Europe was not 
worthy,) to do with the scoundrelism of slave-making'? They will 
find out in time, that mankind despise them for it ; and that the true 
mark of the beast, far beyond all hawking and spitting, and even 
picking of teeth with a fork, is believing in the superiority of the 
hickory-faced animal. In Europe, a stronger feeling is fast gaining 
ground. The liberals there have an arrear to settle, for the disgrace 
unwittingly brought upon them by American association. A quarter 
of a century may be allowed for the check of European freedom, 
arising out of the misfortune of having connected its cause with these 
habitual abrogators of the principles of public and private morality, 
the hostes humani generis who by their own acts place themselves at 
war with all that bears the human form. People may be stout- 
hearted ; but it is a fearful thing to fall into the detestation of the 
b"man race. — No. XLVIL/or Jaw. 1836. 



206 EDINBURGH REVIEW FOREIGN Q,UARTERLT REVIEW. 



EDINBURGH REVIEW. 

Every American who loves his country, should dedicate his whole 
life, and every faculty of his soul, to efface the foul blot of slavery from 
its character. If nations rank according to their wisdom and their 
virtue, what right has the American, a scourger and murderer of 
slaves, to compare himself with the least and lowest of the European 
nations, much more with this great and humane country, where the 
greate?: lord dare not lay a finger on the meanest peasant? What 
is freedom where all are not free 1 where the greatest of God's bless- 
ings is limited, with impious caprice, to the color of the body 1 And 
these are the men who taunt the English with their corrupt parlia- 
ment, with their buying and selling votes. Let the world judge 
which is the most liable to censure — we, who in the midst of rotten- 
ness, have torn the manacles off slaves all over the world; or they 
who, with their idle purity and useless perfection, have remained 
mute and careless while groans echoed and whips cracked round the 
very walls of their spotless congress. We wish well to America — 
we rejoice in her prosperity — and are delighted to resist the absurd 
impertinence with which the character of her people is often treated 
in this country. But the existence of slavery in America is an atro- 
cious crime, with which no measures can be kept — -for which her 
situation affords no sort of apology — which makes liberty itself dis- 
trusted, and the boast of it disgusting. — No. LXI. Art. Travellers in 
America. 



THE FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW. 

It is notorious, that, notwithstanding all the treaties which nave 
been concluded between England and other countries for the abolition 
of the slave-trade, it is still carried on to an enormous extent, be- 
cause, even if the governments were really sincere in their wishes to 
suppress this trade, their subjects were wholly averse to a step which 
they denounced as utter ruin to all interested in the colonies. They 
have therefore persisted in spite of, perhaps with the connivance of 
their governments ; and in Brazil in particular, it has been officially 
declared to be out of the power of the legislature to put an end to 
the traffic. Slaves imported by ships under Portuguese colors are 
indeed sometimes seized, but we fear that they are employed by the 
government nearly in the same ma:<*ner as they would have been if 
sold to private individuals. But the difficulty of convicting and pun- 
ishing these violators of the laws is nearly insurmountable. 

It is affirmed, that the escape of one slave-ship out of three affords 
the dealer sufficient profit. What, then, can England do 1 There is 
one thing which we think might be tried, and which would probably 
have a considerable effect in attaining the object desired. It is well 



LONDON EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE. 207 

Known that it was unanimously resolved by the sovereigns at the 
Congress of Vienna, that the slave-trade should be abolished all over 
the world. The Portuguese transmarine possessions were not then 
separated from the mother country, which it might be hoped would be 
able to exercise some control over thein. They are now independent. 
Let England call on the governments of Europe not to allow the im- 
portation of colonial produce from any country where it can be proved 
that the slave-trade is still curried on, either with the sanction or con- 
nivance of the government, or in spite of it ; such a measure would 
surely act as a check on the importation of slaves. Could that point 
be effectually attained, it might be hoped that the extinction of slavery 
itself would in due time succeed, as it has done in the British colonies. 



LONDON EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE. 

The United States of America present to the world one of the most 
extraordinary spectacles that can be conceived of by the mind of man. 
They are a huge moral and political enigma. We behold part of the 
population priding themselves on the peculiar freedom of their insti- 
tutions, and holding the other pan in the shackles of slavery. They 
are a people who boast that they are possessed of an " admirable 
system of public schools, continually spreading into new states ; 
hundreds of academies ; 70 or 80 colleges ; numerous theological 
and medical schools; 1,200 newspapers ; 8,000 or 10,000 tempemnce 
societies, with a million and a half of members ; 15,000 or 20,000 
Sunday schools, with their libraries and a million of scholars, and 
taught by 120,000 of the best men and women among them ; an 
evangelical ministry of not less than 11,000 ministers of the gospel," 
and, which the writer omits to add, nearly three millions of slaves! 
Alas, that a figure with so goodly a bust should terminate in the slimy 
folds of the serpent ! 

It is melancholy to behold such a monstrosity ; a people judging 
their own rights with the incontrovertible declaration, " that all men 
are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer- 
tain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness ;" and at the same instant depriving their fellow- 
men perpetually of two of these " inalienable rights," and often 
directly or indirectly of the third. Most heartily do we concur with 
our American brethren in the sentiment we here quote. We concur 
with them when they claim to be free from oppression, but we dissent 
from them when they claim also to be free to oppress. The national 
emblem of the American states requires alteration to make it truly 
emblematical of their present and past condition. The eagle, with 
liberty on his wings, should, to complete the resemblance, clutch in 
his talons the manacled and writhing form of the colored man. 

Political arrangements ! Is he a man, and does he call buying, 
selling, and lacerating his fellow-men, political arrangements 1 Is 



208-. GEORGE FOX. 

the flogging of women a political arrangement ? Is tearing the child 
from the mother, and the wife from the husband, a political arrange- 
ment? Are all the murders, adulteries, obscenities, and immoralities 
of every kind, which follow in the train of slavery, political arrange- 
ments 1 We tell him that the curse of God is on such political 
arrangements, and if they are not altered, we tremble for America. 

February, 1836. 



GEORGE FOX. 

" In his disposition he was meek, and tender, and compassionate. 
He was kind to the poor, without any exception, and in his own 
society laid the foundation of that attention towards them, which the 
world remarks as an honor to the Quaker character at the present 
day. But the poor were not the only persons for whom he manifested 
an affectionate concern. He felt and sympathized wherever humanity 
could be interested. He wrote to the judges on the subject of capi- 
tal punishments, warning them not to take away the lives of persons 
for theft. On the coast of Cornwall he was deeply distressed at 
finding the inhabitants more intent upon plundering the wrecks of 
vessels that were driven upon their shores, than upon saving the poor 
and miserable mariners who were clinging to them ; and he bore his 
public testimony against this practice by sending letters to all tlie 
clergymen and magistrates in the parishes bordering upon the sea, 
and reproving them for their unchristian conduct. In the West In- 
dies, also, he exhorted tliose who attended his meetings, to be merci- 
ful to their slaves, and to give them their treedoni in due time. He 
considered these as belonging to their families, and that religious 
instruction was due to these as the branches of them, for whom, one 
day or other, they would be required to give a solemn account. Happy 
had it been if these Christian exhortations had been attended to, or 
if these families only, whom he thus seriously addressed, had con- 
tinued to be true Quakers ; for they would have set an example, 
which would have proved to the rest of the islanders and the world 
at large, that the impolicy is not less than the wickedness of oppress- 
ion. Thus was George Fox, probably the first person Avho pub- 
licly declared against this species of slavery. Nothing, in short, 
that could be deplored by humanity, seems to have escaped his eye ; 
and his benevolence, when excited, appears to have suffered no inter- 
ruption in its progress by the obstacles which bigotry would have 
thrown in the way of many, on account of the difference of a per- 
son's country, or of his color, or of his sect." — Portraiture of Qua- 
kerism. 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 209* 



THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. 

" In the first place they have made it a rule that no person, ac- 
knowledged to be in profession with them, shall have any concern in 
the slave-trade. 

" The Quakers began to consider this subject, as a Christian body, 
so early as in the beginning of the last century. In the year 1727, 
they passed a public censure upon this trade. In the year 1758, and 
afterwards in the year 1761, they warned and exhorted all in pro- 
fession with them, ' to keep their hands clear of this unrighteous gain 
of oppression.' In the yearly meeting of 1763, they renewed their 
exhortation in the following words : 

" ' We renew our exhortation, that Friends everywhere be espe- 
cially careful to keep their hands clear of giving encouragement in 
any shape to the slave-trade ; it being evidently destructive of the 
natural rights of mankind, who are all ransomed by one Saviour, and 
visited by one divine light, in order to salvation ; a traffic calculated 
to enrich and aggrandize some upon the miseries of others ; in its 
nature abhorrent to every just and tender sentiment, and contrary to 
the whole tenor of the gospel.' 

" In the same manner from the year 1763, they have publicly 
manifested a tender concern for the happiness of the injured Africans, 
and they have not only been vigilant to see that none of their own 
members were concerned in this nefarious traffic, but they have lent 
their assistance with other Christians in promoting its discontinuance. 

" But this character of a benevolent people has been raised higher 
of late years in the estimation of the public by new circumstances, 
or by the unanimous and decided part which they have taken as a 
body, in behalf of the abolition of the slave-trade. For where has 
the injured African experienced more sympathy than from the hearts 
of Quakers 1 In this great cause the Quakers have been singularly 
conspicuous. They have been actuated, as it were, by one spring. 
In the ditferent attempts made for the annihilation of this trade, they 
have come forward with a religious zeal. They were at the original 
formation of the committee for this important object, where they gave 
an almost unexampled attendance for years. I mentioned in the 
preceding volume, that near a century ago, when this question had 
not awakened the general attention, it had awakened that of the Qua- 
kers as a body ; and that they had made regulations in their com- 
mercial concerns with a view of keeping themselves clear of the blood 
of this cruel traffic. And from that time to the present day, they 
have never forgotten this subject. Their yearly epistles notice it, 
whenever such notice is considered to be useful. And they hold 
themselves in readiness, on all fit occasions, to unite their efforts for 
the removal of this great and shocking source of suffering to their 
fellow-creatures." — Thomas Clarkson's Portraiture of Quakerism. 

27 



210 DR. PRIMATT JOHN WESLEY. 



DR. PRIMATT. 

It has pleased God to cover some men with white skins, and others 
with black ; but as 'there is neither merit nor demerit in complexion, 
the white man, notwithstanding the barbarity of custom and prejudice, 
can have no right by virtue of his color to enslave and tyrannize over 
the black man. For whether a man be white or black, such he is by 
God's appointment, and, abstractedly considered, is neither a subject 
for pride, nor an object of contempt. — Dissertation on the Duty of 
Mercy, and on the Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals. 



JOHN WESLEY. 

That execrable sum of all villanies commonly called the slave-trade. I read of 
nothing like it in the heathen world, whether ancient or modern. It infinitely ex- 
ceeds in every instance of barbarity, whatever Christian slaves suffer in Mohamme- 
dan countries. — His ivorks, Vol. 3, page 341. 

At Liverpool, many large ships ore now laid up in the docks, which had been 
employed tor many years in buying or stealing Africans, and selling them in 
America for slaves. The men-butchers have now nothing to do at this laudable 
occupation. Since the American war broke out, there is no demand for human 
cattle ; so the men of Africa, as well as Europe, may enjoy their native liberty. — 
Journal for April, 1777. 

THOUGHTS ON SLAVERY. 

1. Slavery imports an obligation of perpetual service ; an obligation which only 
the consent of the master can dissolve. It generally gives the master an arbitrary 
power of any correction nol affecting life or limb. Sometimes even those are ex- 
posed to his will, or protected only by a fine or some slight punishment, too incon- 
siderable to restrain a masterof harsh temper. It creates an incapacity of acquiring 
any thing, except for the master's benefit. It allows the master to alienate the slave 
in the same manner as his cows and horses. Lastly, it descends in its full extent, 
from parent to child, even to the last generation. 

2. The slave-trade began in the year l.'iOS, when the Portuguese imported the first 
negroes into Hispaniola. In 1540, Charles V, then king of Spain, gave positive 
orders, " that all the slaves in the Spanish dominions should be set free." 
This was accordingly done by Lagascar, whom he sent and empowered to free 
them all. But soon after Lagascar returned to Spain, slavery flourished as before. 
Afterward other nations, as they acquired possessions in America, followed the 
example of the Spaniards ; and slavery has taken deep root in most of the Ameri 
can colonies. 

II. In what manner are they generally procured and treated in America ? 

1. Part of them by fraud. Captains of ships invited negroes on board, and then 
carried them away. More have been procured by force. The Christians, so called, 
landing upon their coasts, seized as many as they found, and transported them to 
America. 

2. It was some time before the Europeans found a more compendious way of 
procuring African slaves, by prevailing upon them to make war upon each other, 
and to sell their prisoners. Till then, they seldom had any wars. But the white 
men taught them drunkenness and avarice, and then hired them to sell one another. 
Others are stolen. Abundance of little ones of both sexes are stolen away by their 
neighbors. That their own parents sell them, is utterly fdse. Whites, not 

BLACKS, ARE WITHOUT NATURAL AFFECTION. 



JOHN WESLEY- 211 

3. Extract from the journal of a surgeon who went from New York in the slave- 
trade. " The commander of the vessel sent to acquaint the king that he wanted 
a cargo of slaves. Some time after, the king sent him word he had not yet met 
with the desired success. A battle was ibught which lasted three days. Four 
thousand five hundred men were slain upon the spot !" Such is the manner wherein 
the slaves are procured! Thus the Christians preach the gospei. to the 
Heathen ! 

4. England supplies her American colonies with slaves, amounting to about a 
hundred thousand every year. So many are taken aboard the ships ; but ten 
thousand die on the voyage; about a fourth part more die in the seasoning. So 
that thirty thousand die, that is, are murdered. O earth ! O sea ! cover not their 
blood ! 

5. The negroes are exposed naked to the examination of their purchasers : then 
they are separated to see each other no more. They are reduced to a state, scarce 
any way preferable to beasts of burden. A few yams or potatoes are their food • 
and two rags their covering. Their sleep is very short, thf ir labor continual and 
above their strength, so that death sets many of them at liberty before they have 
lived out half their days. They are attended by overseers, who, if they think them 
dilatory, or any thing not so well done as it should be, wliip them unmercifully ; so 
that 3'ou may see their bodies long after wealed and scarred from the shoulders to 
the waist. Did the Creator intend that the noblest creatures in the visible world 
should live such a life as this ? 

6. As to the punishment inflicted on them, they frequently geld them, or chop 
off half a foot! after they are whipped till they are raw all over, some put pepper 
and salt upon them ; some drop melted wax upon their skin, others cut off their 
ears, and constrain them to broil and eat them. For rebellion, that is, asserting 
their native liberty, which they have as much right to as the air they breathe, they 
fasten them down to the ground with crooked sticks on every limb, and then apply- 
ing fire to the feet and hands, they burn them gradually to the head ! 

7. But will not the laws made in the colonies prevent or redress all cruelty and 
oppression ? Take a few of those laws for a specimen, and judge. 

In order to rivet the chain of slavery, the law of Virginia ordains — "No slave 
shall be set free, upon any pretence whatever, except for some meritorious services, 
to be adjudged and allowed by the Governor and Council; and where any slave 
shall be set free by his owner, otherwise than is herein directed, the church- wardens 
of the parish wherein such negro shall reside for the space of one month, are hereby 
authorized and required, to take vp and sell the said 7iegro, by public outcry." 

Will not these lawgivers take effectual care to prevent cruelty and oppression ? 

The law of Jamaica ordains — "Every slave that shall run away, and continue 
absent from his master twelve months, shall be deemed rebellious ;^^ and by another 
law, fifty pounds are allowed to those "who kill or bring in alive, a rebellious slave." 
So their laws treat these poor men with as little ceremony and consideration as if 
they were merely brute beasts ! But the innocent blood which is shed in conse- 
quence of such a detestable law, must call for vengeance on the murderers, abettors 
and actors of such deliberate wickedness. 

But the law of Barbadoes exceeds even this — " If any negro under punishment by 
his master, or his order, for running away, or any other crime or misdemeanor, shall 
suffer in life or member, no person vihatsoever shall be liable to any fine therefor. But 
if any man, of wantonness, or only of bloody-mindedness, or cruel intention, «'r7/M% 
kill a negro of his own" — now observe the severe punishment! — " he shall pay into 
the pubhc treasury, fifteen pounds sterhng : and not be liable to any other punish- 
ment or forfeiture for the same !" 

Nearly allied to this, is that law of Virginia — " After proclamation is issued 
against slaves that run away, it is lawful for any person whatsoever to kill and 
destroy such slaves by such ways and means as he shall think fit." 

We have seen already some of the ways and means which have been thought fit 
on such occasions : and many more might be mentioned. One man, when I was 
abroad, thought fit to roast his slave dive ! But if the most natural act of running 
away from intolerable tyranny deserves such relentless severity, what punishment 
have those law-makers to expect hereafter, on account of their own enormous oC> 
fences ? 

III. This is the plain, unaggravated matter of fact. Such is the manner wherein 



212 JOHN WESLEY. 

our slaves are procured : such the manner wherein they were removed from their 
native land, and wherein they are treated in our colonies. Can these things be 
defended on the principles of even heathen honesty ? Can they be reconciled, 
setting the Bible out of the question, with any degree of either justice or mercy ? 

2. The grand plea is, " They are authorized by law." But can law, human law, 
change the nature of things? Can it turn darkness into light, or evil into good? 
By no means. Notwithstanding ten thousand laws, right is right, and wrong is 
wrong. There must still remain an essential difference between justice and injus- 
tice, cruelty and mercy. So that I ask ; Who can reconcile this treatment of the 
slaves, first and last, with either mercy or justice? where is the justice of inflicting 
the severest evils on those who have done us no wrong? Of depriving those who 
never injured us in word or deed, of every comfort of life? Of tearing them from 
their native country, and depriving them of liberty itself; to wliich an Angolan has 
the same natural right as an American, and on which lie sets as high a value? 
Where is the justice of taking away the lives of innocent, inoffensive men ? Mur- 
dering thousands of them in their own land by the hands of their own countrymen ; 
and tens of thousands in that cruel slavery, to which thev are so unjustly reduced? 

3. But I strike at the root of this complicated villany. 1 absolutely deny all slave- 
holding to be consistettt unth any degree of natural justice. Judge Blackstone has 
placed this in the clearest light, as follows : 

"The three origins of tlie right of slavery assigned by Justinian are all built upon 
false foundations. 1. Slavery is said to arise from captivity in war. The conqueror 
having a right to the life of his captive, if he spares that, has a right to deal with 
them as he pleases. But this is untrue, that by the laws of nations a man has a 
right to kill his enemy. He has only a right to kill him in cases of absolute neces- 
sity, for self-defence. And it is plain this absolute necessity did not subsist, since 
he did not kill him, but made him prisoner. War itself is justifiable only on prin- 
ciples of self-preservation. Therefore it gives us no right over prisoners, but to 
hinder their hurting us by confining them. Much less can it give a right to torture, 
or kill, or even enslave an enemy, when the war is over. Since tlierofore the right 
of making our prisoners slaves, depends on a supposed right of slaughter, that foun- 
dation failing, the consequence which is drawn from it must fail likewise. 2. It is 
said, slavery may begin by one man's selling himself to another. It is true, a man 
may sell himself to work for another ; but he cannot sell himself to be a slave, as 
above defined. Every sale implies an equivalent given to the seller, in lieu of what 
he transfers to the buyer. But what equivalent can be given for life or liberty? His 
property likewise, with the very price which he seems to receive, devolves to his 
master the moment he becomes his slave : in this case therefore, the buyer gives 
nothing. Of what vahdity then can a law be, which destroys the very principle 
upon which all sales are founded. 3. We are told that men may be bom slaves, by 
being the children of slaves. But this, being built upon the two former false claims, 
must fall witli them. If neither captivity nor contract, by the plain law of nature 
and reason, can reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much less can they reduce 
the offspring." It cleariy ibllows, that all slavery is as irreconcileable to justice, as 
to mercy. 

4. That slaveholding is utterly inconsistent with mercy is almost too plain to 
need a proof It is said : " These negroes, being prisoners of war, our captains 
and factors buy them, merely to save them from being put to death. Is not this 
mercy?" I answer; 1. Did Hawkins, and many others, seize upon men, women, 
and children, who were at peace in their own fields and houses, merely to save them 
from death ? 2. AVas it to save them from death, that they knocked out the brains 
of those they could not bring away ? 3. Who occasioned and fomented those wars, 
wherein these poor creatures were taken prisoners? VvHio excited them by money, 
by drink, by every possible means to fall upon one another ? Was it not themselves ? 
They know in their own consciences it was, if they have any consciences left. 4. 
To bring the matter to a short issue : Can they say before God, that they ever took 
a single voyage, or bought a single African from this motive ? They cannot. To 
get money, not to save lives, was the whole and sole spring of their motives. 

5. But if this manner of procuring and treating slaves is not consistent with mercy 
or justice, yet there is a plea for it which eveiy man of business will acknowledge 
to be quite sufficient. One meeting an eminent statesmen, in the lobby of the 
House of Comnaons said — "You have been long talking about justice and equity • 



JOHN WESLEY. 213 

pray, which is this bill? Equity or justice ?" He answered very short and plain — 
"Damn justice; it is necessity." Here also the slaveholder fixes his foot; here 
he rests tlie strength of his cause. " If it is not quite right, yet it must be so: there 
is an absolute necessity fm- it. It is necessary we should procure slaves ; and when 
we have procured them, it is necessary to use them with severity, considering their 
stupidity, stubbornness, and wickedness." You stumble at the threshold ; I deny 
that villany is ever necessary. It is impossible that it should ever be necessary for 
any reasonable creature to violate all the laws of justice, mercy, and truth. No 
circumstances can make it necessary for a man to burst in sunder all the ties of 
hiimanit)-. It can never be necessary for a rational being to sink liimself below a brute. 
A man can be under no necessity of degrading himself into a wolf. The absurdity of 
the supposition is so glaring, that one would wonder rny one could help seeing it. 

6. What is necessary? and to what end? It maybe answered; "The whole 
method now used by the original purchasers of Africans is necessary to the furnish- 
ing our colonies yearly with a hundred thousand slaves." I grant this is necessary 
to that end. But how is that end necessary? How will you prove it necessary that 
one hundred, that one of tiiose slaves should be procured? " It is necessary to my 
gaining a hundred thousand pounds." Perhaps so : but how is this necessary ? It 
IS very possible you might be both a better and a happier man, if you had not a 
quarter of it. I deny that your gaining one thousand is necessary, either to your 
present or eternal happiness. " But you must allow tliese slaves are necessary for 
the cultivation of our islands: inasmuch as white men are not able to labor in hot 
climates." I answer ; 1. It were better that all those islands should remain uncul- 
tivated for ever; yea, it were more desirable that they were altogether sunk in the 
depth of the sea, than that they should be cultivated at so high a price, as the viola- 
tion of justice, mercy, and truth. 2. But the supposition on which you ground your 
argument is false. White men are able to labor in hot climates, provided they are 
temperate both in meat and drink, and that they inure themselves to it by degrees. 
I speak 710 more than I know by experience. The summer heat in Georgia is fre- 
quep'iy equal to that in Barbadoes, and to that under the line : • yet I and my family, 
eight in number, employed all our spare time there, in felling of trees and clearing 
of ground, as hard labor as any slave need be employed in. TLhe German family 
likewise, forty in number, were employed in all manner of labor. Tliis was so far 
from impairing our health, that we all continued perfectly well, while the idle ones 
round about us were swept away as with a pestilence. It is noc true therefore, that 
white men are not able to labor, even in hot climates, full as well as black. If they 
were not, it would be better that none should labor there, that the work should be 
left undone, than that myriads of innocent men should be murdered, and myriads 
more dragged into the basest slavery. "But the furnishing us v,'ith slaves is neces- 
sary for The trade, wealth, and glory of the nation." Better no trade, than trade 
procured by villany. It is far better to have no wealth, than to gain wealth at the 
expense of virtue. Better is honest poverty, than all the riches bought by the tears, 
and sweat, and blood of our fellow-creatures. 

7. " Yv'hen we have slaves, it is necessary to use them with severity." What, to 
ichip them for evenj petty offence till they are in a gore of blood ? To lake that oppor- 
tunity of rubbing pepper and salt into their rav: flesh ? To drop burning sealing-wax 
upon thtir shins ? To castrate them 1 To cut off half their foot icilh an axe ? To 
hang them on gibbets, that they may die by inches icith heat, and hunger, and thirst ? 
To pin them doion to the ground, and then burn them by degrees from the feet to the 
head ? To roast them alive ? "^^■hen did a Turk or a heathen find it necessary to 
use a fellow-creature thus ? To what end is this usage necessary ? " To prevent 
their running away, and to keep them constantly to their labor, that they may not 
idle away their time. vSo miserably stupid is this race of men, so stubborn and so 
wicked!" Allowing this, to whom is that stupidity owing ? It hes altogether at 
the door of their inhuman masters, who gave them no means, no opportunity of 
improving their understanding ; and indeed leave them no motive, either from hope 
or fear to attempt any such tiling. They were no way remarkable for stupidity 
while they remained in Africa. To some of the inhabitants of Europe tluy are 
greatly superior. Survey the natives of Benin, and of Lapland. Conipaie the Sa- 
moeids and the Angolans. The African is in no respect inferior to the European. 
Their stupidity in our colonies is not natural ; otherwise than it is the natural effect 
of their condition. Consequently it is not their fault, but yours : and you must 



214 JOHN WESLEY. 

answer for it before God and man. " But their stupidity is not the only reason of 
our treating them with severity ; for it is hard to say which is the greatest, this, or 
their stubbornness and wickedness." But do not these, as well as the other, lie at 
your door 1 Are not stubbornness, cunning, pilfering, and divers other vices, the 
natural necessary fruits of slavery, in every age and nation ? What means have 
you used to remove this stubbornness ? Have you tried what mildness and gentle- 
ness would do ? What pains have you taken, what method have you used to 
reclaim them from their wickedness ? Have you carefully taught them, " that tliere 
is a God, a wise, powerful, merciful Being, the Creator and Governor of heaven and 
earth ; that he has appointed a day wherein he will judge the world, will take an 
account of all our thoughts, words, and actions ; tliat in that day he will reward 
every child of man according to his works : that then the righteous shall inherit the 
kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world ; and the wicked shall 
be cast into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels ?" If you have 
not done this, if you have taken no pains nor thought about this matter, can you 
wonder at their wickedness ? What wonder if they should cut your throat ? and 
if they did, whom could you thank for it but yourself? You first acted the villain in 
making them slaves, whether you stole them or bought tliem. You kej)! them stupid 
and wicked, by cutting them off from all opportunities of improving either in knowl- 
edge or virtue ; and now you assign their want of wisdom or goodness as the reason 
for using them worse than brute beasts ! 

V. I add a few words to those who are more immediately concerned. 

1. To Traders. You have torn away children from their parents, and parents 
from their children ; husbands from their wives ; wives from tlieir beloved husbands ; 
brethren and sisters from each other. You have dragged them who have never 
done you any wrong, in chains, and forced them into the vilest slavery, never to 
end but with life ; such slavery as is not found among the Turks in Algiers, nor 
among the heathens in America. You induce the villain to steal, rob, murder 
men, women, and children, without number, by paying him for his execrable labor. 
It is all your act and deed. Is your conscience quite reconciled to this ? Does it 
never reproach you at all ? Has gold entirely blinded your eyes, and stupified your 
heart ? Can you see, can you feel no harm therein ? Is it doing as you would be 
done to? Make the case your own. " Master," said a slave at Liverpool, to the 
merchant that owned him, " what if some of my countrymen were to come here, and 
take away Mistress, and Tommy, and Billy, and carry them into our country, and 
make them slaves, how would )'ou like it ?" His answer was worthy of a man — 
" I will never buy a slave more while I live." Let his resolution be yours. Have no 
more any part in this detestable business. Instantly leave it to those unfeeling 
wretches, " who laugh at human nature and compassion." Be you a man ; not a 
wolf, a devouier of the human species! Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy. 

Is there a God ? You know there is. Is he a j ust God ? Then there must 
be a state of retribution ; a state wherein the just God will reward every man ac- 
cording to his works. Then what reward will he render to you ? O think betimes ! 
before you drop into eternity! Think now. "He shall have judgment without 
mercy that hath showed no mercy." Are you a man ? Then you should have a 
liiinian heart. But have you indeed ? What is your heart made of? Is there no 
such principle as compassion there ? Do you never feel another's pain ? Have 
you no sympathy ? no sense of human wo? no pity for the miserable ? When you 
saw the streaming eyes, the heaving breasts, the bleeding sides, and the tortured 
limbs of your fellow creatures, were you a stone or a brute? Did you look upon 
them with the eyes of a tiger ? Had you no relenting ? Did not one tear drop from 
your eye, one sigh escape from your breast ? Do you feel no relenting notv ? If 
you do not, you must go on till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will 
the great God deal with you, as you hav« dealt with them, and require all their 
blood at your hands. At that day it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Go- 
morrah than for you. But if your heart does relent ; resolve, God being your helper, 
to escape for your life. Regard not money ! All that a man hath, will he give for 
his life. Whatever you lose, lose not yo'ur soul ; nothing can countervail.that loss. 
Immediately quit the horrid trade ; at all events be an honest man. 

2. To Slaveholders. Tliis equally concerns all slaveholders, of whatever rank 
and degree ; seeing men-buyers are exactly on a level icith men-steaiers .' Indeed you 
say, " I pay honestly for my goods ; and I am not concerned to know how they are 



ADAM CLARKE. 215 

come by." Nay, but you are: you are deeply concerned to know they are honestly 
come by : otherwise you are partaker with a thief, and are not a jot honester than 
he. But you know they are not honestly come by : you know they are procured 
by means nothing near so innocent as picking pockets, house-breaking, or robbery upon 
the highway. You know they are procured by a deliberate species of more compli- 
cated villany, of fraud, robbery, and murder, tlian was ever practised by Moham- 
niedans or Pagans ; in particular, by murders of ail kinds ; by the blood of the 
innocent poured upon the ground like water. Now it is your money that pays the 
African butcher. You therefore are principally guilty of all these fiauds, robberies, 
and murders. You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion. They would 
not stir a step without you : therefore the blood of all these wretches who die before 
their time lies upon your head. " The blood of tliy brother crieth against thee from 
the earth." O whatever it costs, put a stop to its cry before it be too late ; instantly, 
at any price, were it the half of your goods, deliver thyself from blood guiltiness ! 
Thy hands, thy bed, thy furniture, thy house, and thy lands at present are stained with 
blood. Surely it is enough ; accumulate no more guilt: spill no more the blood of 
the innocent. Do not hire another to shed blood ; do not pay him for doing it. 
Whether you are a Christian or not, show yourself a man ! Be not more savaige 
than a Uon or a bear ! 

Perhaps you will say: "I do not buy any slaves ; I only use those left by my 
father." But is that enough to satisfy your conscience? Had your father, have 
you, has any man living a right to use another as a slave ? It cannot be, even setting 
revelation aside. Neither war nor contract can give any man such a property in 
another as he has in his sheep and oxen. Much less is it possible, that any child 
of man should ever be born a slave. Liberty is the right of every human creature, 
as soon as he breathes the vital air : and no human law can deprive him of that 
right which he derives from the law of nature. If, therefore, you have any regard 
to justice, to say nothing of mercy, or of the revealed law of God, render unto all 
their due. Give liberty to whom liberty is due, to every child of man, to every par- 
taker of human nature. Let none serve you but by his own act and deed, by his 
own voluntary choice. Away with all whips, all chains, all compulsion ! Be 
gentle toward all men, and see that you invariably do unto every one, as you would 
he should do unto you. 

O thou God of love, thou who art loving to eveiy man, and whose mercy is over 
all thy works ; thou who art the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and who art rich 
in mercy unto all ; thou who hast formed of one blood, all the nations upon the 
earth ; have compassion upon these outcasts of men, who are trodden down as dung 
upon the earth ! Arise, and help these that have no helper, whose blood is spilled 
upon the ground like water ! Are not these also the work of thine own hands, the 
purchase of thy Son's blood ? Stir them up to cry unto thee in the land of their 
captivity ; and let their complaint come up before thee ; let it enter into thine ears ! 
Make even those that lead them captive to pity them and turn their captivity. O 
burst thou all their chains in sunder ; more especially the chains of their sins : thou 
Saviour of all, make them free, that they may be free indeed ! 

" The servile progeny of Ham, 

Seize as the purchase of thy blood ; 
Let all the heathens know thy name. 

From idols to the living God 
The dark Americans convert, 

And shine in every Pagan heart !" 



ADAM CLARKE. 

Isaiah Iviii, 6. — Let the oppressed go free. How can any nation pretend to fast, 
or worship God at all, or dare profess that they believe in the existence of such a 
Being, while they carry on what is called the slave-trade: and traffic in the souls, 
blood, and bodies of men! O ye most flagitious of knaves and worst of hypocrites! 
cast off" at once the mask of religion, and deepen not your endless perdition by pro- 
fessing the faith of our Lord Jesua Christ, while you continue in this traffic ! 



216 THOMAS SCOTT JAMES BEATTIE. 



THOMAS SCOTT. 

Exodus xxi, 16. — "He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in 
his hands, he shall surely be put to death." Stealing a man in order to sell him for 
a slave, whether the tloief had actually sold him, or whether he continued in his pos- 
session. He who stole any one of the human family, in order to make a slave of 
him, should be punished with death. The crime would be aggravated by sending 
them away into foreign countries to be slaves to idolaters. 

Deuteronomy xxiv, 7. — " If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the 
children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him, then THAT 
THIEF SHALL DIE." — Every man is now our brother, whatever be his nation, 
complexion or creed. How then can the merchandise of men and women be car- 
ried on, without transgressing this commandment, or abetting those who do ? A 
man may steal, or purchase of those who do steal, hundreds of men and women, 
and not only escape with impunity, but grow great like a jirince. According to 
the law of God, whoever stole cattle restored four or five fold ; whoever stole one 
human being, though, an infant or an idiot, must die. 

I. Timothy i, 10. — " Men-stealers." — Men-stealers are inserted among those 
daring crimuials against whom the law of God directed its awful curses. Persons 
who kidnapped men to sell them for slaves. This practice seems inseparable from 
the other iniquities and oppressions of slavery ; nor can a slave-dealer by any means 
keep free from that atrocious criminality, if the receiver be as bad as the thief. They 
who encourage that unchristian traffic by purchasing that, which is thus unjustly 
acquired, are partakers in their crimes. — J\Iacknight. — That is the only species of 
theft lohich is punished with death by the laws of God. 

James ii, 12, 13. — "So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the 
law of liberty. 

" For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy, and 
mercy rejoiceth against judgment." On this verse Dr. Scott makes the following 
remarks — "All who are not taught to show mercy to others, must expect to be dealt 
with according to the severity of justice in respect of their eternal state. What then 
must be the doom of the cruel oppressors and iniquitous tyrants of the human spe- 
cies? But the hard-hearted, sellish, implacable, and oppressive professor of Chris- 
tianity, has the greatest cause to tremble; for if 'he shall have judgment without 
mercy, who hath shown no mercy,' the meanest slave that ever was whipt and 
worked to death, must be considered as happy, compared with his haughty cruel 
tyrant, and this shall sufficiently appear, ' when the earth shall disclose her blood, 
and shall no more cover her slain.' " 

Revelation xviii, 13. — "Slaves and souls of men." — Not only slaves, but the souls 
of men arc mentioned as articles oi commerce, v,'h:cli is beyond comparison, the 
most infamous of all traffics that the demon of avarice ever devised ; almost infin- 
itely more atrocious, than the accursed slave-trade. Alas! too often, injustice, 
oppression, fraud, avarice, or excessive indulgence are connected with extensive 
commerce ; and to number the persons of 7nen, with oxen, asses, sheep and horses, 
as the stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a ship, is no doubt a 
most detestable and anti-christian practice. — Scott^s Commentaries on the Bible. 



JAMES BEATTIE. 

It is well observed by the wisest of poets (as Atheneus, quoting the 
passage, justly calls), Homer, who lived when slavery was common, 
and whose knowledge of the human heart is unquestionable, that 
" When a man is made a slave, he loses from that day the half of his 
virtue." And Longinus, quoting the same passage, affirms, " Slavery, 
however mild, may still be called the poison of the soul, and a public 
dungeon." And Tacitus remarks, that " Even wild animals lose 



JAMES BEATTIE. 217 

their spirit when deprived of their freedom." All history proves, and 
every rational philosopher admits, that as liberty promotes virtue and 
genius, slavery debases the understanding and corrupts the heart of 
both the slave and the master, and that in a greater or less degree, as 
it is more or less severe. So that in this plea of the slave-monger, 
we have an example of that diabolical casuistry, whereby the tempter 
and corrupter endeavors to vindicate or gratify himself, by accusing 
those whom he himself has tempted or corrupted. 

Slavery is inconsistent with the dearest and most essential rights 
of man's nature ; it is detrimental to virtue and to industry ; it 
hardens the heart to those tender sympathies which form the most 
lovely part of human character ; it involves the innocent in hopeless 
misery, in order to procure wealth and pleasure for the authors of that 
misery ; it seeks to degrade into brutes beings whom the Lord of 
heaven and earth endowed with rational souls, and created for immor- 
tality ; in short, it is utterly repugnant to every principle of reason, 
rehgion, humanity, and conscience. It is impossible for a conside- 
rate and unprejudiced mind to think of slavery without horror. That 
a man, a rational and immortal being, should be treated on the same 
footing with a beast or piece of wood, and bought and sold, and 
entirely subjected to the will of another man, whose equal he is by 
nature, and whose superior he may be in virtue and understanding, 
and all for no crime, but merely because he was born in a certain 
country, or of certain parents, or because he differs from us in the 
shape of his nose, the color of his skin, or the size of his lips ; if this 
be equitable, or excusable, or pardonable, it is vain to talk any longer 
of the eternal distinctions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, 
good and evil. It has been said that negroes are animals of a nature 
inferior to man, between whom and the brutes, they hold, as it were, 
the middle place. But though this were true, it would not follow that 
we have a right either to debase ourselves by a habit of cruelty, or to 
use them ill ; for even beasts, if inoffensive, are entitled to gentle 
treatment, and we have reason to believe that they who are not mer- 
ciful will not obtain mercy. Besides, if we were to admit this theory, 
we should be much at a loss to determine whether the negro does 
really partake so much of the brute, as to lose that right of liberty 
which, unless it be forfeited by criminal conduct, is inherent in every 
human, or at least in every rational being. And further, in the same 
proportion in which black men are supposed to be brutes, they must 
be supposed incapable of moral notions, and consequently not ac- 
countable for their conduct, and therefore to punish them as criminals 
must always be, in a certain degree, both absurd and cruel. But, I 
think that our planters know both negroes and mulattoes too well to 
have any doubt of their being men. The very soil becomes more 
fertile under the hands of freemen. " Liberty and property," says 
the intelligent Le Poivre, " form the basis of abundance and good 
agriculture. I never observed it to flourish where those rights of 
mankind were not firmly established. The earth which multiplies 
her productions with profusion under the hands of the freeborn laborer, 

28 



218 WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D. D. BISHOP WARBURTON. 

seems to shrink into barrenness under the sweat of the slave." The 
same sentiments are found in Pliny and Columella, who both impute 
the decay of husbandry, in their time, not to any deficiency in the 
soil, but to the unwise policy of leaving to the management of slaves 
those fields, which, says Pliny, " had formerly rejoiced under the 
laurelled ploughshare and the triumphant ploughman." Rollin, with 
good reason, imputes to the same cause the present barrenness of 
Palestine, which in ancient times was called the land flowing with 
milk and honey. 



WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D. D. 

In the ancient world .... the persons, the goods, the children of 
these slaves, were the property of their masters, disposed of at plea- 
sure, and transferred, like any other possession, from one hand to 
another. No inequality, no superiority in power, no pretext of con- 
sent, can justify this ignominious depression of human nature, or can 
confer upon one man the right of dominion over another. But not 
only doth reason condemn this institution as unjust ; experience 
proved it to be pernicious both to masters and slaves. The elevation 
of the former inspired them with pride, insolence, impatience, cruelty, 
and voluptuousness ; the dependant and hopeless state of the latter 
dejected the human mind, and extinguished every generous and noble 
principle in the heart. — Sermon. 



BISHOP WARBURTON. 

" From the free savages I now come to the savages in bonds. By 
these I mean the vast multitudes yearly stolen from the opposite con- 
tinent, and sacrificed by the colonists to their great idol the god of 
gain. But what, then, say these sincere worshippers of mammon ? 
They are our own property which we offer up. Gracious God ! to 
talk, as of herds of cattle, of property in rational creatures, creatures 
endued with all our faculties, possessing all our qualities but that of 
color, our brethren both by nature and grace, shocks all the feelings 
of humanity, and the dictates of common sense ! But, alas ! what 
is there, in the infinite abuses of society, which does not shock them 1 
Yet nothing is more certain in itself and apparent to all, than that the 
infamous traffic for slaves directly infringes both divine and human 
law. Nature created man free, and grace invites him to assert his 
freedom. 

" In excuse of this violation it hath been pretended, that though 
indeed these miserable outcasts of humanity be torn from their homes 
and native country by fraud and violence, yet they thereby become 
the happier, and their condition the more eligible. But who are you, 
who pretend to judge of another man's happiness ; that state, which 



DR. FECKARD. 219 

each man under the guidance of his Maker forms for himself, and 
not one man for another] To know what constitutes mine or your 
happiness is the sole prerogative of him who created us, and cast us 
in so various and different moulds. Did your slaves ever complain 
to you of their unhappiness amidst their native woods and deserts 1 
or rather let me ask, Did they ever cease complaining of their condi- 
tion under you their lordly masters, where they see indeed the accom- 
modation of civil life, but see them pass to others, themselves unbe- 
nefited by them 1 Be so gracious, then, ye petty tyrants over human 
freedom, to let your slaves judge for themselves, what it is which 
makes their own happiness, and then see whether they do not place it 
in the return to their own country, rather than in the contemplation 
of your grandeur, of which their misery makes so large a part ; a 
return so passionately longed for, that, despairing of happiness here, 
that is, of escaping the chains of their cruel task-masters, they con- 
sole themselves with feigning it to be the gracious reward of heaven 
in their future state." — Sermon, 1766. 



DR. PECKARD. 

" Now, whether we consider the crime with respect to the indi- 
viduals concerned in this most barbarous and cruel traffic, or whether 
we consider it as patronised and encouraged by the laws of the land, it 
presents to our view an equal degree of enormity. A crime, founded 
on a dreadful pre-eminence in wickedness ; a crime which, being both 
of individuals and the nation, must some time draw down upon us the 
heaviest judgment of Almighty God, who made of one blood all the 
sons of men, and who gave to all equally a natural right to liberty ; 
and who, ruling all the kingdoms of the earth with equal providential 
justice, cannot suffer such deliberate, such monstrous iniquity, to pass 
long unpunished." — Sermon before the Cambridge University. 



THE HOLY BIBLE 



MOSES. 

Chap. I, verse 27. So God created 
man in his own image : in the image of 
God created he him ; male and female 
created he them. [Mttyratits and slaves.] 

IV, 9. And the Lord said unto Cain, 
Where is Abel thy brother? And he 
said, I know not: Am I my brother's 
keeper? 

10. And he said, What hast thou 
done? the voice of thy brother's blood 
crieth unto me from the ground : 

11. And now art thou cursed from the 
earth, which hath opened her mouth to 
receive thy brother's blood from thy 
hand. 

XXXVir, 28. And [they] sold Joseph 
to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of 
silver; and they brought Joseph into 
Egypt. 

XLII, 21. And they said one to an- 
other, We are verily guilty concerning our 
brother, in that we saw the anguish of 
his soul, when he besought us, and we 
would not hear ; therefore is this distress 
come upon us. — Genesis. 

XX, 1. And God spake all these 
words, saying, 

2. I am the Lord thy God, which have 
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, 
out of the house of bondage. 

3. Thou shalt have no other gods be- 
fore me. 

13. Thou shalt not kill. 

14. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

15. Thou shalt not steal. 

16. Thou shalt not bear false witness. 

17. Thou shalt not covet. — [See the 
lohole chapter.] 

XXI, 16. And he that stealeth a man, 
and selleth him, or if he be found in his 
hand, he shall surely be put to death. 

26. And if a man smite the eye of his 
servant, or the eye of his maid, that it 
perish ; he shall let him go free for his 
eye's sake. 

27. And if he smite out his man-ser- 
vant's tooth, or his maid-servant's tooth; 
he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake. 

XXIII, 9. AJso thou shalt not oppress 
a stranger : for ye know the heart of a 



stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the 
land of Egypt. — Exodus. 

XIX, 11. Ye shall not steal, neither 
deal falsely, neither lie one to another. 

13. Thou shalt not defraud thy neigh- 
bor, neither rob hi7n : the wages of him 
that is hired shall not abide with thee all 
night until the morning. 

18. Thou shalt love tliy neighbor as 
thyself. 

33. And if a stranger sojourn with 
thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. 

34. But thestrangerthat dwelletliwith 
you shall be unto you as one born among 
you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; 
for ye were strangers in the land of 
Egypt; I am the Lord your God. 

XXIV, 21. Andhethatkillethaman, 
he shall be put to death. 

22. Ye shall have one manner of law, 
as well for the stranger, as for one of 
your own country : for I am the Lord 
your God. 

XXV, 10. And ye shall hallow the 
fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty through- 
out all the land unto all the inhabitants 
thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you ; 
and ye shall return every man unto his 
possession, and ye shall return every man 
unto his family. 

35. And if thy brother be waxen poor, 
and fallen in decay witli thee, then thou 
shalt relieve him ; yea, though he be a 
stranger, or a sojourner; that he may 
live with thee. 

36. Take thou no usury of him, or in- 
crease : but fear thy God ; that thy 
brother may live with thee. — Levititits. 

XV, 11. For the poor shall never 
cease out of the land : therefore I com- 
mand thee, saying. Thou shalt open thine 
hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, 
and to thy needy, in thy land. 

14. Thou shalt not oppress an hired 
servant, that is poor and needy, whether 
he he of thy brethren, or of thy strangers 
that are in thy land within thv gates: 

XXIII, 15. THOU SHALT NOT 
DELIVER UNTO HIS MASTER 
THE SERVANT WHICH IS ES- 
CAPED FROM HIS MASTER UN- 
TO THEE. 



THE HOLY BIBLE. 



221 



16, He shall dwell with thee, eveti 
among you, in that place which he shall 
choose, in one of thy gates where it 
liketh him best : thou shalt not oppress 
him. 

XXVII, 19. Cursed be he that per- 
verteth the judgment of the stranger, 
fatherless, and widow : and all the peo- 
ple shall say, Amen. 

26. Cursed be he tiiat confirmeth not 
all the words of this law to do them : and 
all the people shall say, Amen. 

XXVIII, 15. But it shall come to 
pass, if thou wilt not iiearken unto the 
voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to 
do all his commandments and his stat- 
utes, which I command thee this day, 
that all these curses shall come upon 
thee, and overtake thee. 

37. And thou shalt become an aston- 
ishment, a proverb, and a by-word, 
among all nations whither the Lord shall 
lead thee. 

41. Thou shalt beget sons and daugh- 
ters, but thou shalt not enjoy them : for 
they shall go into captivity. 

43. The stranger that is within thee 
shall get up above thee very high, and 
thou shalt come down very low. 

44 He shall lend to thee, and thou 
shalt not lend to him: he shall be the 
head, and thou shalt be the tail. 

45. Moreover, all these curses shall 
come upon tiiee, and shall pursue thee, 
and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed ; 
because thou hearkenedst not unto the 
voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his 
commandments and his statutes which 
he commanded thee. 

46. And they shall be upon thee for a 
sign, and for a wonder, and upon thy 
seed for ever. — Deuteronomy. 

JOB. 

IV, 8. Even as I have seen, they that 
plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap 
the same. 

XV, 20. The wicked man travaileth 
with pain all his days, and the number of 
years is hidden to the oppressor. 

21. A dreadful sound is in his ears; 
in prosperity the destroyer shall come 
upon him. 

22. He believeth not that he shall re- 
turn out of darkness, and he is waited 
for of tr.e sword. 

23. He wandereth abroad for bread, 
saying, Where is it ? he knoweth that 
the day of darkness is ready at his hand. 

XX, 13. This is the portion of a 
wicked man wiUi Gsd, ard the heritage 



of oppressors, which they shall receive of 
the Almighty. 

14. If his children be multiplied, it is 
for the sword; and his oflspring shall 
not be satisfied with bread. 

15. Those that remain of him shall be 
buried in death; and his widows shall 
not weep. 

18. That which he labored for shall 
he restore, and shall not swallow it down : 
according to his substance shall the resti- 
tution be, and he shall not rejoice therein. 

19. Because he hath oppressed and 
hath forsaken the poor ; because he hath 
violently taken away an house which he 
budded not : 

XXXI, 13. If I did despise the cause 
of my man-servant, or of my maid-ser- 
vant, when they contended with me ; 

14. What then shall I do when God 
riseth up? and when he visiteth, what 
shall I answer him? 

1 5. Did not he that made me in the 
womb make him ? and did not one fash- 
ion us in the womb ? 

DAVID. 

IX, 12. When he maketh inquisition 
for blood, he remembercth them ; he for- 
getteth not the cry of the humble. 

17. The wicked shall be turned into 
hell, and all the nations that forget God. 

18. For the needy shall not always be 
forgotten: the expectation of the poor 
shall not perish for ever. 

X, 2. The wicked in his pride doth 
persecute the poor ; let them be taken in 
the devices that they have imagined. 

XII, 5. For the oppression of the poor, 
for the sighing of the needy, now will I 
arise, saitli the Lord ; I will set him in 
safety /ro7ii him that puffeth at him. 

6. The words of the Lord ore pure 
words : 

25. With the merciful thou wilt shew 
thyself merciful ; with an upright man 
thou wilt shew thyself upright; 

26. With the pure thou wiit shew thy- 
self pure ; and with the froward thou wilt 
shew thyself froward. 

27. For thou wilt save the afflicted 
people ; but wilt bring down high looks. 

XLIX, 1. Hear this, all ye people; 
give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world . 

2. Both low and high, rich and poor, 
together. 

7. None of them can by any means 
redeem his brother, nor give to Cod a 
ransom for him ; 

8. (For the redemption of their souls is 
precious, and it ceaseth for ever : ) 



222 



THE HOLT BIBLE. 



LXXII, 4. He shall judge the poor 
of the people, he shall save the children 
of the needy, and shall break in pieces 
the oppressor. 

12. For he shall deliver the needy 
when he crieth ; the poor also, and him 
that hath no helper. — Psalms. 

SOLOMON. 

Ill, 1. And Solomon made affinity 
with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took 
Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her in to 
the city of David. 

3. And Solomon loved the Lord, 
walking in the statutes of David liis 
father. — 1 Kings. 

VI, 38. Then hear thou from the 
heavens, even from thy dwelling-place, 
and do according to all that the stranger 
calleth to thee for : that all people of the 
earth may know thy name, and fear tliee, 
as doth thy people Israel. — 1 Chronicles. 

I, 24. Because I have called, and ye 
refused ; I have stretched out uiy hand, 
and no man regarded ; 

25. But ye have set at nought all my 
counsel, and would none of my re- 
proof: 

26. I also will laugh at your calamity ; 
I will mock when your fear conieth ; 

27. When your fear cometh as deso- 
lation, and your destruction cometh as a 
whirlwind ; when distress and anguish 
cometh upon you : 

31. Therefore shall they eat of the 
fruit of their own way, and be filled with 
their own devices. 

II, 3. Let not mercy and truth forsake 
thee ; bind them about thy neck ; write 
them upon the table of thine heart: 

4. So shalt thou find favor and good 
understanding in the sight of God and 
man. 

3L He that oppresseth the poor re- 
proacheth liis Maker ; but he that hon- 
uieth him hath mercy on the poor. 

,32. The wicked is driven away in his 
wickedness ; but the righteous hath hope 
in his death. 

34. Righteousness exalteth a nation: 
but sin is a reproach to any people. 

XXII, 22. Rob not the poor, because 
he is poor ; neither oppress the afflicted 
in the gate ; 

23. For the Lord will plead their 
cause, and spoil the soul of those that 
spoiled them. 

23. These things also belong to the 
wise. It is not good to have respect of 
persons in judgment. 

24. He that saith unto the wicked, 



Thou art righteous ; him shall the people 
curse, nations shall abhor him : 

XXX, 8. Open thy mouth for the 
dumb in the cause of all such as are ap- 
pointed to destruction. 

9. Open thy mouth, judge righteously, 
and plead the cause of the poor and 
needy. — Proverbs. 

IV, 1. So I returned, and considered 
all the oppressions that arc done under 
the sun : and behold, the tears of such as 
were oppressed, and they had no com- 
forter ; and on the side of their oppressors 
there icas power ; but they had no com- 
forter. 

V, 8. If thou seest the oppression of 
the poor, and violent perverting of judg- 
ment and justice in a province, marvel 
not at the matter : for he that is higher 
than the highest regardeth ; and there be 
higher than they. 

18. Behold that which I have seen ; it 
is good and comely for one to eat and 
drink, and to enjoy the good of all his 
labor that he taketh under the sun all 
the days of his life, which God giveth 
him ; for it is his portion. 

VIII, 11. Because sentence against an 
evil work is not executed speedily, there- 
fore the heart of the sons of men is fully 
set in them to do evil. — Ecclesiastes. 

5. 1 am black, but comely, O ye daugh- 
ters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, 
as the curtains of Solomon. 

6. Look not upon me, because I am 
black, because the sun hath looked upon 
me; my mother's children were angry 
with me ; they made me the keeper of the 
vineyards ; but mine own vineyard have 
I not kept. — Songs. 

ISAIAH. 

I, 4. Ah sinfiil nation, a people laden 
with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, chil- 
dren that are corrupters ! they have for- 
saken the Lord, they have provoked the 
Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are 
gone away backward. 

II. To what purpose is the multitude 
of your sacrifices unto me? saith the 
Lord: 

16. Vv ash you, make you clean ; put 
away the evil of your doings from before 
mine eyes : cease to do evil ; 

17. Learn to do well ; seek judgment ; 
relieve the oppressed ; judge the father- 
less ; plead for the widow. 

18. Come now, and let us reason to- 
gether, saith the Lord : 

V, 15. What mean ye that ye beat my 
people to pieces, and grind the faces 



i 



THE HOLY BIBLE. 



223 



of the poor? saith the Lord God of 
hosts. 

IS. Woe unto them that draw iniquity 
with cords of vanity, and sin as it were 
with a cart- rope. 

20. Woe unto them that call evil good, 
and good evil ; that put darkness for 
light, and light for darkness ; that put 
bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! 

23. Which justify the wicked for re- 
ward, and take away the righteousness 
of the righteous from him ! 

25. Therefore is the anger of the Lord 
kindled against his people. 

26. And he will lift up an ensign to 
the nations from far, and will hiss unto 
them from the end of the earth ; and be- 
hold, they shall come with speed swiftly. 

X, 1. Woe unto them that decree un- 
righteous decrees, and that write griev- 
ousness which they have prescribed ; 

2. To turn aside the needy from judg- 
ment, and to take away the right from 
the poor of my people, that widows may 
be their prey, and that they may rob the 
fatherless ! 

3. And what will ye do in the day of 
visitation, and in the desolation which 
shall come from far? to whom will ye 
flee for help ? and where will ye leave 
your glory ? 

XXXIII, L Woe to thee that spoil- 
est, and thou wast not spoiled ; and deal- 
est treacherously, and they dealt not 
treacherously with thee ! when thou shalt 
cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled ; and 
when thou shalt make an end to deal 
treacherously, they shall deal treacher- 
ously with thee. 

1 5. He that walketh righteously, and 
speaketh uprightly ; he that despiseth the 
gain of oppressions, that shaketh his 
hands from holding of bribes, that stop- 
peth his ears from hearing of blood, and 
shutteth his eyes from seeing evil. 

16. He shall dwell on high; his place 
of defence shall be the munitions of rocks ; 
bread shall be given him, his waters shall 
be sure. 

XLII, 22. But this is a people robbed 
and spoiled ; Ihey are all of them snared 
in holes, and they are hid in prison-houses: 
they are for a prey, and none delivereth ; 
for a spoil, and none saith. Restore. 

23. Who among you will give ear to 
this ? who will hearken, and hear for the 
time to come ? 

LVIII, 1. Cry aloud, spare not; lift 
up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew 
my people their transgression, and the 
house of Jacob their sins. 

6. Js not this the fast that I have cho- 



sen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, 
to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the 
oppressed go free, and that ye break 
every yoke ? 

7. Is it not to deal thy bread to the 
hungry, and that thou bring the poor 
that are cast out to thy house? when 
tiiou seest the naked, that thou cover 
him ; and that thou hide not thyself from 
tliine own flesh ? 

JEREMIAH. 

XXXIV, 10. Now, when all the 
princes, and all the people, which had 
entered into the covenant, heard that 
every one should let his man-servant, 
and every one liis maid-servant, go free, 
that none should serve themselves of 
them any more ; then they obeyed, and 
let them go. 

U. But afterward they turned, and 
caused the servants and the handmaids, 
whom they had let go free, to return, 
and brought them into subjection for ser- 
vants and for handmaids. 

1 7. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Ye 
have not hearkened unto me, in proclaim- 
ing liberty, every one to Iv- brother, and 
every man to his neighbor: behold, I 
proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, 
to the sword, to t!ie pestilence, and to 
the famine ; and I will make you to be 
removed into all the kingdoms of the 
earth. 

Ill, 34. To crush under his feet all llie 
prisoners of the earth, 

35. To turn aside the right of a man 
before the face of the most High, 

36. To subvert a man in his cause, the 
Lord approveth not. — Lamentations. 

EZEKIEL. 

XXXIV, 4. The diseased have not 
yet strengthened, neither have ye healed 
that which was sick, neither have ye 
bound up that which was broken, neither 
have vc brought again that which was 
driven away, neither have ye sought that 
which was lost; but with tbrce and with 
cruelty have ye ruled them. 

15. I will feed my flock, and I will 
cause them to lie down, saith the Lord 
God. 

16. I will seek that wliich was lost, 
and bring again that which was driven 
away, and will bind up that lohich was 
broken, and will strengthen that which 
was sick ; but I will destroy the fat and 
the strong; I will feed them with judg- 
ment. 



224 



THE HOLT BIBLE. 



JOEL. 

Ill, 6. The children also of Judah, 

and the children of Jerusalem, have ye 
sold unto the Grecians, that ye might 
remove them far from their border. 

7. Behold, I will raise them out of the 
place wliither ye have sold them, and 
will return your recompense upon your 
own head: 

8. And I will sell your sons and your 
daughters into the hand of the children 
of Judah, and they shall sell them to the 
Sabeans, to a people far oft'; for the 
Lord hath spoken it. 

MIC AH. 

8. He hath shewed thee, O man, what 
is good ; and what doth the Lord re- 
quire of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy 
God? ^ 

MALACHI. 

Ill, 5. And I will come near to you 
to judgment ; and I will be a s\vift wit- 
ness against the sorcerers, and against 
the adulterers, and against false swearers, 
and against those that oppress the hire- 
ling in his wages, the widow, and the 
fatherless, and that turn aside the strang- 
er /rom his right, and fear not me, saith 
the Lord of hosts. 

JESUS CHRIST. 

V, 7. Blessed are the merciful : for 
they sliall obtain mercy». 

VII, 2. For with what judgment ye 
judge, ye shall be judged: and with 
what measure ye mete, it shall be mea- 
sured to you again. 

12. Therefore all things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do 
ye even so to them : for this is the law 
and the prophets. 

18. A good tree cannot bring forth 
evil fruit ; neither can a corrupt tree 
bring forth good fruit. 

19. Every tree that bringeth not forth 
good fruit is hewn down, and cast into 
the fire. 

20. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall 
know them. 

IX, 1 3. But go ye and learn what that 
meaneth, I will have mercy, and not 
sacrifice : for I am not come to call the 
righteous, but sinners to repentance. 

XVI, 3. ye hypocrites, ye can discern 
the face of the sky ; but can ye not dis- 
cern the signs of the times ? 



XVIII, 7. IT Woe unto the world be- 
cause of offences ! for it must needs be 
that offences come ; but woe to that man 
by whom the offence cometh ! 

XXII, 39. And the second is Rke 
unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself. 

40. On these two commandments hang 
all the law and the prophets. 

XXI II, 8. But be ye not called Rab- 
bi : for one is your Master, even Christ; 
and all ye are brethren. 

23. Woe unto you. Scribes and Phari- 
sees, hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of mint, 
and anise, and cummin, and have omitted 
the weightier mailers of the law, judg- 
ment, mercy, and faith : these ought ye 
to have done, and not to leave the other 
undone. 

24. Ye blind guides, which strain at a 
gnat, and swallow a camel. 

33. Ye serpents, ye generation of vi- 
pers, how can ye escape the damnation 
of hell ? 

XXV, 44. Then shall they also an- 
swer him, saying, Lord, wficn saw we 
thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, 
or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did 
not minister unto thee ? 

45. Then shall he answer them, say- 
ing. Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as 
ye did it not to one of the least of these, 
ye did it not to me. — St. Mattheio^s 
Gospel. 

ST. LUKE. 

IV, 18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon 
me, because he hath anointed me to 
preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath 
sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to 
preach deliverance to the captives, and 
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at 
liberty them that are bruised. 

VI, 36. Be ye therefore merciful, as 
your Father also is merciful. 

X, 36. Which now of these three, 
thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him 
that fell among the thieves ? 

37. And he said, He that showed mer- 
cy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, 
Go, and do thou likewise. 

XI, 47. And that servant, which knew 
his lord's will, and prepared not himself, 
neither did according to his will, shall be 
beaten with many stripes. — St. Luke's 
Gospel. 

ST. JOHN. 

Ill, 19. And this is the condemnation, 
that light is come into the world, and men 
loved darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds were evil. 



TUB BOLT BIBLK, 



225 



20. For every one that doeth evil hateth 
the light, neither cometh to the light, lest 
his deeds should be reproved. 

XV, 12. IT This is my commandment, 
That ye love one another, as I have loved 
you. 

14. Ye are my friends, if ye do what- 
soever I command you. 

15. Henceforth I call you not servants ; 
for the servant knowetli not what his lord 
doeth : but I have called you friends ; for 
all things that I have heard of my Father 
1 have made known unto you. 

17. These things I command you, that 
ye love one another. — St. John's Gospel 

ST. PETER. 

X, 34. IT Then Peter opened his 
mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive 
that God is no respecter of persons : 

35. But in every nation he that feareth 
him, and worketh righteousness, is ac- 
cepted with him. — ^cts. 

8. Finally, be ye all of one mind, ha''- 
ing compassion one of another ; love as 
brethren, be pitiful, be courteous ; 

10. For he that will love hfe, and see 
good days, let him refrain his tongue 
from evil, and his lips that they speak no 
guile; 

1 1. Let him eschew evil, and do good ; 
let him seek peace, and ensue it. — 1st 
Epistle. 

ST. PAUL. 

II, 3. And thinkest thou this, O man, 
that judgesl them which do such thmgs, 
and doest the same, that thou shalt 
escape the judgment of God ? 

6. Who will render to every man ac- 
cording to his deeds. 

II. For there is no respect of per- 
sons with God. — Epistle to the Romans. 

XVII, 26. And hath made of one blood 
all nations of men for to dwell on all the 
face of the earth, and hath determined 
the times before appointed, and the 
bounds of their habitation. — i^cts. 

X, 11. Now ail these things happened 
unto them for ensamples ; and they are 
written for our admonition, upon whom 
the ends of the world are come. — 1 Co- 
rinthiaiis. 

III, 17. Now the Lord is that Spirit: 
and where the Spirit of the Lord ' is, 
there is liberty. 

VIII, 14. But by an equality, that now 
at this time your abundance may be a 
supply for their want, that their abundance 
also may be a supply for your want, that 
there may be equality. — 2 Corinthians. 



V, 1. Stand fast tho-efore in the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and 
be not entangled again with the yoke of 
bondage. ^ 

13. For, brethren,'^^ have been called 
unto liberty ; only use not liberty for an 
occasion to the flesh, but by love serve 
one anotiier. 

14. For all the law is fulfilled in one 
word, even in this. Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself 

15. But if ye bite and devour one an- 
other, take heed that ye be not consumed 
one of another. — Galatians. 

IV, 28. Let him that stole steal no 
more ; but rather let him labor, working 
with his hands the thing which is good, 
that he may have to give to him that 
needeth. 

V, 11. And have no fellowship with 
the unfruitful works of darkness, hut 
rather reprove them. 

9. And, ye masters, do the same things 
unto them, forbearing threatening: 
knowing that your Master also is in 
heaven ; neither is there respect of per- 
sons with him. — Ephesiatis. 

III, 25. But he that doeth wrong shall 
receive for the wrong which he hath done : 
and there is no respect of persons. 

IV, 1. MasterSj-'give unto your serv- 
ants that which is just and equal ; know- 
ing that ye also have a Master in heaven. 

Colossians. 

I, 8. But we know that the law is 
good, if a man use it lawfully. 

9. Knowing this, that the law is not 
made for a righteous man, but for the 
lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly 
and for sinners, for unholy and profane, 
for murderers of fathers and murderers 
of mothers, for manslayers, 

10. For whoremongers, for them that 
defile themselves with mankind, for men- 
stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and 
if there be any other thing that is con- 
trary to sound doctrine. 

V, 21. I charge thee before God, aiul 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect an- 
gels, that thou observe these things, 
without preferring one before anotiier, 
doing nothing by partiality. 

22. Lay hands suddenly on no man, 
neither be partaker of other men's sin.= : 
keep thyself pure. 

VI, 10. For the love of money is the 
root of all evil ; which while some men 
coveted after, they have erred from the 
faith, and pierced themselves through 
with many sorrows. 

II. But thou, O man of God, flea 
these things ,- and follow after righteou*- 



29 



220 



THE HOLT BIBLE. 



ness, godliness, faith, love, patience, 
meekness. 

18. Ti.at they do good, that they be 
rich in good works, ready to distribute, 
willing to communicate. — 1 Timothy. 

I, 6. For God hath not given us the 
spirit of fear ; but of power, and of love, 
and of a sound mind. 

IV, 2. Preach the word ; be instant in 
season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke, 
exhort, with all long-suffering and doc- 
trine. 

3. For the time will come when they 
will not endure sound doctrine. — 2 Ti- 
mothy. 

X, 26. For if we sin wilfully after 
that we have received the knowledge of 
the truth, there remaineth no more sacri- 
fice for sins, 

27. But a certain fearful looking for of 
judgment and fiery indignation, which 
shall devour the adversaries. 

30. For we know him that hath said. 
Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will re- 
compense, saith the Lord. And again. 
The Lord shall judge his people. 

31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the 
hands of the living God. 

XIII, 3. Remember them that are in 
bonds, as bound with them ; and them 
which suffer adversity, as being your- 
selves also in the body. — Hebrews. 

ST. JAMES. 

I, 27. Pure religion, and imdefiled, be- 
fore God and the Father, is this. To visit 
the fatherless and widows in their afflic- 
tion, and to keep himself unspotted from 
the world. 

II, 5. Hearken, my beloved brethren. 
Hath not God chosen the poor of this 
world rich in faith, and heirs of the king- 
dom which he hath promised to them 
that love him ? 

6. But ye have despised the poor. Do 
not rich men oppress you, and draw you 
before the judgment-seats ? 

8. If ye fulfil the royal law according 
to the scripture. Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself, ye do well : 

9. But if ye have respect to persons, 

f/e commit sin, and are convinced of tho 
aw as transgressors. 

II, 16. And one of you say unto them. 
Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled ; 
notwithstanding ye give them not those 
things which are" needful to the body, 
what doth it profit ? 

17. Even so faith, if it hath not works, 
is dead, being alone. 

18. Yea, a man may say, Thou ha«t 



faith, and I have works : shew me thy 
faith without thy works, and I will shew 
thee my faith by my works. 

19. Thou believest that there is one 
God; thou doest well: the devils also 
believe, and tremble. 

V, 1. Go to now, ye rich men, weep 
and howl for your miseries that shall 
come upon you. 

4. Behold, the hire of the laborers who 
have reaped down your fields, which is 
of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and 
the cries of them which have reaped are 
entered into the ears of the Lord of 
sabaoth. 

5. Ye have lived in pleasure on the 
earth, and been wanton ; ye have nour- 
ished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 

6. Ye have condemned and killed the 
just; anrf he doth not resist you. 

ST. JOHN. 

II, 10. He that loveth his brother, 
abideth in the light, and there is none 
occasion of stumbling in him : 

II, But he that hateth his brother is in 
darkness, and walketh in darkness, and 
knoweth not whither he goeth, because 
that darkness hath Winded his eyes. 

III, 10. In this the children of God are 
manifest, and the children of the devil : 
whosoever doeth not righteousness is not 
of God, neither he that loveth not his 
brother. 

11. For this is the message that ye 
heard from the beginning, that we should 
love one another. 

17. But whoso hath this world's good, 
and seeth his brother have need, and 
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from 
him,howawelleththeloveofGod in him? 

IV, 20. If a man say, I love God and 
hateth his brother, he is a liar : for he that 
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how can he love God whom he hath not 
seen? 

21. And this commandment have we 
from him. That he who loveth God love 
his brother also. — 1st Epistle. 

10. If there come any unto you, and 
bring not this doctrine, receive him not 
into your house, neither bid him God 
speed : 

1 1. For he that biddeth him God speed 
is partaker of his evil deeds. — 2d Epistle. 

XIII, 9. If any man have an ear, let 
him hear. 

10. He that leadeth into captivity, shall 
go into captivity: he that killetn with 
the sword, must be killed with the sword. 

XVIII, 4. And 1 heard another voice 



THB HOLT BIBLE. 



227 



from heaven, saying, Come out of her, 
my people, that ye be not partakers of 
her sins, and that ye receive not of her 
plagues : 

5. For her sins have reached unto 
heaven, and God hath remembered her 
iniquities, 

6. Reward her even as she rewarded 
you, and double unto her double, accord- 
mg to her works : in the cup which she 
hath filled, fill to her double. 

10. Standing afar off for the fear of her 
torment, saying, Alas, alas ! that great 
city Babylon, that mighty city ! for in one 
hour is thy judgment come. 

Jl. And the merchants of the earth 
shall weep and mourn over her ; for no 
man buyeth their merchandise any more : 

13. Fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, 



and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and 
slaves and souls of men. 

XX, 12. And I saw the dead, small 
and great stand before God : and tht 
books were opened ; and another book 
was opened, which is the book of life: 
and the dead were judged out of those 
things which were written in the books, 
according to their works. 

13. And the sea gave up the dead 
which were in it; and death and hell 
delivered up the dead which were in them : 
and they were judged every man accord- 
ing to tlieir works. 

XXII, 12. And behold, I come quick- 
ly ; and my reward is with me, to give 
every man according as his work shall 
be. — Revelation. 



INDEX. 





PMO« 




piga. 


Abdv,E.S. 

Aboution in Great Britain, • 


- ^2 


Cowper, William . - - 


191 


- 174 


Cruelty, Cases of - - - 


137 


" in Mexico, - 


- 56 


Curran, J. P. - 


163 


Adams, John - - - 


11 


Curtis, Mr. . - - . 


47 


" John a. - 


. 50, 59 






" Samuel 


26 


Darwin, Erasmus - - - 


195 


Addison, Joseph 


. 190 


David, ----- 


221 


Address to the Public, 


- 105 


Declaration of A. S. Convention, 


101 


African Character, 


- 146 


" of Independence, 


3 


Alabama, Constitution of - 


7 


Delaware, Constitution of 


6 


Amalgamation, - - - 


• 134 


Dickey, James H. - - - 


125 


Anecdotes, Authentic, Sec 


- 125 


Dickey, William . - - 


131 


Anti-Slavery Convention, 


101, 109 


Dupuis, Mr. - . - - 


152 


" Society, New England, - 


- 107 






Austria, - - - - 


- 155 


Eaton, William - - - 


33 






Edgeworth, Maria - - - 


168 


Barlow, Joel - - - 


25 


Edinburgh Review, - - 91 


,206 


Beattie, James - - . 


- 216 


Edwards, Jonathan - - - 


83 


Benezet, Anthony - 


22 


Emancipation, Effects of - 


156 


Best, William - - - 


- 175 


Erskine, Thomas - - - 


187 


Bible, Extracts from the - 


220 


Evangelical Magazine, London 


207 


Bimey, James G. - - 


- 118 


Everett, A. H. - 


149 


Blackstone, William 


174 


Ezekiel, - - - - - 


223 


Bolivar, Simon - . - 


- 160 






Boyer, Jean Pierre - 


160 


Faulkner, Mr. - - - - 


47 


Breckinridge, Robert J. 


- 112 


Flogging to death, - - - 


134 


Brissot, Jaques Pierre 


165 


Florida, why acquired - - - 


124 


BrodnaxMr. - - - 


- 47 


Foreign GLuarterly Review, 


206 


Brougham, Henry - 


197 


Fox, Charles James - - - 


183 


Buffon, ... - 


- 163 


" George - - - - 


208 


Bulwer, E. L. - 


196 


France, - . - - - 


161 


Burke, Edmund - - - 


. 181 


Francis, Philip . - - 


185 


Burning men in Arkansas, 


144 


Franklin, Benjamin - - - 


18 


Burns, Robert - . - 


- 190 


Friends, Society of - 


209 


Buxton, Thomas Fowell - 


68, 198 










Gates, Horatio - - - - 


26 


Campbell, Thomaa 


- 194 


" Genius of Universal Emanci- 




Carysfort, Lord 


187 


pation," . - - - 


121 


Chandler, E. M. 


- 92 


Georgia, Constitution of - - 


6 


Channing, Wilham E. 


114 


Godwin, Benjamin - - • 


201 


Child, David L. - 


. 11 


Green, General Duff . - - 


51 


" Lydia Maria - 


97 


Gregoire, H. - 


163 


Citizen of the World, - 


- 152 


Grenville, George . . - 


188 


Clarke, Adam 


215 


Grimkd, S. M. & A. E. - 


98 


Clarkson, Thomas 


- 177 


Guerrero, Decree of - 


57 


Clay, Henry - - - 


49 






Clinton, De Witt 


- 35 


Hayti, 


159 


Cole, Governor 


15 


Henry, Patrick - - ,- 


22 


Commons, House of - 


- 67 


Heyrick, Elizabeth . - - 


200 


Connecticut, Constitution of 


5 


Hicks, Elias . . - - 


88 


Constitution of the A, A. S. S. 


' 104 


Historical Evidence, 


156 


" of the United States, 


3 


Hopkins, Samuel, D. D. 


80 


Couxtenay, John 


- 183 


Horsley, Bishop 


ISd 



230 



INDEX. 



Houston, Gen. Letter of • 


-T.- 


North American Review, • 


.'T, 


Hoy, B. 


67 


North Carolina, Constitution of 


6 


Huddlestone, Mr. 


- 186 










O'Connell, 


- 169 


Illinois, Constitution of - 


7 


Ohio, Constitution of - - 


7 


[ndiana, " " 


7 


" Anti Slavery Convention, 


- 109 


Isaiah, . - - - • 


222 


Omichand, .... 


152 


Jackson, Andrew 


- 36 


Park, Mungo ... 


- 146 


Jay, John - - . - 


23 


Patriot, London ... 


67 


Jefibrson, Thomas 


- 13 


Peckard, Dr. . . - 


- 219 


Jeremiah, - - . - 


223 


Pennsvlvanio, Constitution of - 


7 


Jesus Christ, ... 


- 224 


Act of 


- 17 


Job, - . - - - 


221 


Peyton, Mr. .... 


124 


Joel, . - 


- 224 


Pierpont, John . . - 


- 97 


John, Saint - - - - 


224 


Pinckney, William 


26 


Johnson, Samuel 


- 189 


Piracy, of the Slave Trade 


7 


Jones, Sir William - - - 


196 


Pitkin, Hon. Timothy - 


124 






Pitt, William - 


- 180 


Kenrick, John - - - 


- 89 


Pope, Alexander - . - 


190 


Kentucky, Constitution of 


7 


Postletwhaite, G. L. - 


- 71 




- 26 


Potter, Alonzc ... 


113 






Preamble to Pennsylvania Act, 


- 17 


Lafayette, - - - 


11,12 


Presbyterian Church, 


76 


Lane Seminary, Discussion in 


- 132 


Price, Dr. ... 


• 14 


Ledger, Public ... 


122 


Primatt, Dr. . . - . 


210 


Leggett, William 


- 122 






Liberty of the Press, 


5,6,7 


Randolph, Governor - 


- 46 


Louisiana, Constitution of • 


7 


" John 


42 


Lijike, Saint - - . - 


224 


" Thomas J. 


- 44 


Lundy Benjamin - - - 


- 53 


Rankin, John ... 


126 






Ray, WilUam . . - 


- 34 


Madden, R.R. - 


- 152 


Raynal, Abbe . - - 


165 


Maine, Constitution of - 


5 


Reed, Wilham B. 


- 69 


Malachi, - - - - 


. 224 


Representatives, U. S. House of 


35 


Map, Moral of the U. S. - 


66 


Review, Edinburgh 


91,206 


Marselloise Hymn, 


. 161 


" Foreign duarterly 


206 


Martin, James ... 


181 


" North American - 


- 51 


Martineau, Harriet 


. 201 


" Westminster 


204 


Maryland, Constitution of 


6 


Riley, Captain - - - 


- 34 


Massachusetts, Constitution of 


5 


Ritner, Governor ... 


52 


Methodist Episcopal Church, - 


80 


Robertson, WilUam, D. D. - 


- 218 


Mexico, Abolition in - 


. 56 


Roscoe, William ... 


192 


» Coin of - - - 


66 


Rosseau, J. G. - 


- 162 


Micah, . . . - 


. 224 


Rush, Benjamin ... 


21 


Mifflin, Warner . - - 


31 


Russia, - - ,- 


. 155 


Milton, John ... 


. 189 






Mississippi, Constitution of 


7 


Scene in Georgia, - 


144 


Missouri, " " - 


7 


Scott, Thomas ... 


- 216 


Monroe, James ... 


23 


Separation of a family. 


134 


Montesquieu, - - . 


- 161 


Shakspeare, William - 


- 189 


Montgomery, James 


193 


Sharp, Archbishop . . - 


151 


Moore, Thomas 


- 169 


Sharp, Granville 


- 175 


More, Hannah •• 


193 


Sigourney, Mrs. L. H. - 


95 


Moses, - J - . 


- 220 


Slave Trade, 


7,90 


• 




Smith, William . . - 


182 


Neutrality, . . . - 


74 


Solomon, . . - 


- 222 


New England Anti S. Society, 


- 107 


South Carolina, Constitution of 


6 


New Hampshire, Constitution of 5 


Speeches, Parliamentary 


- 177 


New York, Constitution of 


5 


St. Domingo, . - - - 


159 


'■ Legislature, 


49 


Sterne, Lawrenc* 


- 167 



INDKX. 



231 



page. 

Stewart, John - - - 195 

Stone, Asa A. - - - - 140 

Story, Joseph ... 37 

Swain, B. - - - - - 4G 

Swift, Jonathan - - - 1G7 

Summers, Mr. - ... 48 

Sun, New- York ... 71 

Tappan, Letter to Mr. - - 135 

» William B. - - 96 

Tennessee, Constitution of - - 1 

Testimony, Religious and Moral 76 

Texas, Constitution of - - 57 

" Relation of, to England, 67 

» War in ... 53 

Tomluns, Daniel D. - - 35 

Torrey, Jesse Jr. ... 88 

Toussaint L'Ouvertuie, - - 153 



Vermont, Constitution of - 


pag». 
6 


Virginia, Constitution of - 


6 


Walsh, Rev. R. 


. 151 


Warburton, Bishop 


218 


Ward, H.G. - 


- 67 


Washington, George - 


S 


Wayland, Francis 


- 113 


Webster, Daniel 


41 


Wesley, John . . - 


- 210 


Westminster Review, 


204 


Wheatley, Phillis 


8,154 


Whitbread, Samuel 


187 


Whitfield, George 


- 126 


Wilberforce, William 


177 


Wilkinson, General - 


- 76 


Wilson, Edward J. 


71 


Wirt, William ... 


• 42 


Woodbury, James T. 


121 



APR 4 1904 



IB Mr '05 



